Dreams Locked in Silver
by Cimz
Summary: Part 1: Orpheus takes Eric as a hostage when he masterminds a prison break, thrusting Eric back into Nicole's life. Part 2: Nicole isn't surprised that she's writing letters to a man in prison. She's surprised that that man is Eric. Part 3: Upon his release from prison, Eric explores his theory that Nicole's son may be alive. Ericole. Complete.
1. Break

**Author's Note:** _And we begin in Summer 2016, with Eric in prison for killing Daniel, Nicole perpetually mourning Daniel, Brady about to marry Theresa, and Clyde/Xander/Orpheus planning a prison break._

* * *

 **One**.

Xander was always watching Eric, and Eric knew it.

It was tiring to be always, always on his guard, but Eric was able to make certain that Xander never had the opportunity to corner him or fight him. Eric had been in a few fights during his incarceration— more because his police officer relatives had put many of these men in prison than because of anything Eric himself had said or done— and he'd acquitted himself well enough that he wasn't viewed as an easy target. His time in the priesthood had taught him never to raise his hand to another human being, but the self-defense lessons he'd gotten as a child who was the son of a cop were even more deeply ingrained.

But he didn't want to try Xander.

Xander was insane.

Xander would willingly take more years in prison, or solitary confinement, or serious bodily injury, if it meant that Eric suffered.

For month after month, Eric managed to keep Xander from getting within ten feet of him except when they were standing next to a guard or three.

So Xander was reduced to whispering.

" _The time will come, Eric."_

" _You'll be reunited with Serena, and you'll both like that, won't you?"_

" _You escaped the furnace, but you won't escape again."_

" _Your cousin had to lie to put me here, but you're here for something you really did. Don't you think God will even things out, Father Eric?"_

" _Do you think I would have a chance with Nicole if I avenged her doctor's death by murdering you? The woman is an unmitigated bitch, but her body doesn't quit."_

Eric liked to think that he was good at controlling his emotions, but Xander knew just which buttons to push. He would return to his cell hot-headed and furious, barely able to control his anger, only just managing to channel the fury into pushups and sit-ups while his cellmate wondered aloud what precisely his problem was.

Usually, Xander wasn't able to get close enough to Eric to whisper. Usually, Xander was reduced to glowering from the other side of the cafeteria or the exercise yard.

That was why it chilled Eric to the bone when, on a day that seemed much like any other day, Xander looked at him with a satisfied, happy grin.

* * *

Nicole stared disconsolately at the wedding invitation that had been hand-delivered by a young man in a too-snazzy uniform. At first she'd thought that she was being served; a moment later, she reconsidered that a lawsuit would have been preferable.

It wasn't that she didn't want Brady to be happy; of course she did. She had even come around to the position that Theresa might be an acceptable choice of bride. Brady had certainly done worse when he'd tried to marry Kristen DiMera of all people. Brady and Theresa shared a son, after all, and there were worse things than giving a child his best shot at having two loving parents in his home.

But the last thing Nicole wanted to do was attend a wedding.

The wedding she should have been attending was her own wedding to Daniel.

Or, at least, she should have been attending this wedding with Daniel as her date.

She looked again at the invitation. The RSVP card had already been filled in with the number "two;" she couldn't scratch it out and say she was coming solo any more than she could have demanded that she be allowed a guest if the invitation had been addressed to her alone.

Since when had Nicole become Miss Manners?

Since Daniel's death had drained her of the energy to make her own rules.

She pulled out her phone and skimmed through her contacts. She laughed at her options. Dario and Deimos were too much a betrayal of Daniel; she didn't want to go somewhere romantic like a wedding with either of them.

Rafe was firmly in her friend-zone, would no doubt be attending with Frowny Face. Wasn't Rafe all about becoming a father? Why was he so infatuated with a woman who had a mostly-grown _grandchild_?

Lucas would have been a longshot anyway, as much of a disaster as their marriage had been, but he had that thing going with Adrienne Kiriakis. Maybe older women was the trend? Should _she_ look around for an escort almost young enough to be her son? JJ Deveraux had a certain appeal, handsome like his father, but his girlfriend had already established her willingness to murder when romantic entanglements didn't go her way, and Nicole wasn't going to get involved in that.

The thought of giving Aiden Jennings a call almost made her laugh out loud. As much as Aiden was persona non grata with the rest of Salem, that would have been a sight to see. Aiden might have been a bit of a psycho, but he was _fun_ and no one had ever hit him with an ugly stick. There would be no concerns about romantic undertones because he would be busy gazing across the room at Hope. But, no, Nicole was a good person now, and even if she wasn't, she couldn't make a spectacle of Brady's wedding.

Forget men, then. She'd rather attend with Brady's ex than one of her own, anyway.

Satisfied with her decision, she sent Chloe a text asking whether they could be each other's dates for Brady's wedding.

Chloe texted back that she loved the idea of Brady's two favorite exes attending as a team, and that they could get their hair done together that morning, too.

A moment later, Brady texted that that was not what he and Theresa had intended when they had pointedly suggested that Nicole bring a date, but that he was just happy that she would be there.

Nicole sighed.

* * *

Eric was edgy for two days after Xander grinned at him. He was so edgy, in fact, that instead of avoiding Xander, he sat right across from him in the cafeteria when the opportunity presented itself.

Once again, Xander smiled. "I hear your whole family is going to be at Brady and Theresa's wedding," he said pleasantly. "Your whole family except you. It must be difficult for you. I know how you and Brady just love each other. I heard that when you accidentally got locked in with the furnace, Brady stood over you like an overbred guard dog until you got to the hospital."

 _Accidentally locked in with the furnace._ Rage started to rise in Eric's chest again, but he forced it down. "You know how it is," said Eric as pleasantly as he could. "I wish I could be there, but since I can't, I'm just glad that he's going to be happy."

"Eighth time is a charm, right?" asked Xander. "I think that's how many weddings my dear cousin is up to. Funny how you've never given it a try, not even once. Not even with… Nicole."

Eric pondered whether it would be worth it to grab Xander by the throat and tell him never to mention Nicole's name again.

No, he decided. It would be enjoyable, but not worth it. He would never find out what Xander was doing while sitting in solitary confinement.

"Nicole is still a sore spot with you, isn't she?" asked Xander.

"No," said Eric.

Xander's laughter was disconcertingly carefree. "You're a terrible liar," he said.

"He always has been, even when he was a little boy," said the older man beside Xander. Eric hadn't even looked at him, which was a violation of every law of prison survival in existence. Now, he stared openly at Xander's companion and searched his memory. He came up empty.

"Do I know you?" asked Eric. A warning tone sounded through the room. Their quick meal period was over, and the prisoners were being ordered to their feet in groups of four.

"No," said the man. "But I know you." He held out his hand for Eric to shake. "Milo Harp."

"How do you—" Eric began, but the warning tone sounded again and he was ordered to his feet and back to his cell.

He hadn't liked the look of Milo Harp at all. He didn't know the man himself, but he knew desperation and vengeance and viciousness when he saw them.

Xander had found a dangerous ally. No wonder he was so happy.

No wonder Eric felt so helpless.

* * *

Early on the morning of Brady's wedding, Chloe met Nicole at the salon, as promised.

Unfortunately, Chloe was not alone. She had brought along Belle and Claire.

Nicole steeled herself to ignore the whole group of them. Chloe was fun as her adult self, but around her high school classmates she tended to regress to a teenager that Nicole found both boring and insufferable. Belle offered polite condolences about how hard it must be to attend a wedding so soon after losing Daniel even though it meant so very much to Brady, and Nicole resisted the urge to claw Belle's eyes out for bringing it up. Claire, meanwhile, had the one-track mind common to most teenagers and was bound and determined to monopolize Chloe so that they could discuss singing, singing, singing, and more singing.

Nicole was glad when sinks and blow driers started running and she couldn't hear any of them. She couldn't even see Chloe and Belle, although she could almost feel their giggles as they relived their Last Blasts, or whatever those ridiculous dances had been called.

But she could see Claire, and that was worse.

Nicole knew that when most people looked at Claire, they saw Belle all over again in the porcelain skin, wide eyes, and impossibly innocent gestures.

Nicole saw Claire's Uncle Eric.

Eric had been just about Claire's age when he and Nicole had first met. He'd been just as confident and gentle, just as determined and quick to see the good in people.

The years had hardened Eric like they hardened everyone, like they would someday harden Claire. The years— and Nicole— had hardened Eric so badly that he was currently sitting in prison rather than getting ready to stand up at his beloved brother's wedding.

To Nicole's horror, her eyes flooded with tears.

Even worse, Claire noticed and scrambled for her mother's purse to get Nicole a tissue.

"Were you thinking of Dr. Jonas?" asked Claire in that super-sweet way that Eric had had once, too.

Nicole made a show of drying her eyes so that she wouldn't have to answer.

"Here," said Claire. "Take the whole package."

A card tumbled from Belle's purse into Nicole's lap. Both Nicole and Claire looked at it curiously.

 _Enjoy the wedding._

— _Milo Harp_

"Who's Milo Harp?" asked Nicole, glad to focus on something else.

"I don't know. A wedding planner? Mom?" Claire waved the card at Belle. "Who is this?"

But Belle was as puzzled as the rest of them. She didn't know how the card had made its way into her purse, let alone who Milo Harp was.

"It's definitely a fake name," Nicole decided. "Does Brady have security at this thing?"

Belle assured Nicole that after their son's recent kidnapping, yes, Brady and Theresa had taken steps to make sure the wedding guests would all be safe.

It didn't make Nicole feel much better.

 **Two.**

Eric had hoarded all of his credits of any kind, a twisted reflection of the materially simple life he had been expected to live as a priest. It wasn't difficult to get time and permission to make a phone call.

"Eric!" Roman's voice was frantic when he picked up a moment later. Eric hated that he had put his family in the position of panicking every time they thought of him. "Is everything okay?"

"I hope so," said Eric. "Does the name Milo Harp mean anything to you?"

Roman paused. "Not off the top of my head, no. I can run it through our system if you'd like, but I can't necessarily tell you what I find."

"Do that, please," said Eric. If this person had really been watching Eric since his childhood, he had been watching the rest of Eric's family as well.

While Roman entered one thing and another into the police department's clunky computer system, Eric told him everything that Xander and Harp had told him the day before.

"It may just be Xander Kiriakis playing mind games with you," said Roman. "I hope to God that's it. I'm looking at Harp's mugshot right now, and he does look a little bit familiar but I don't see any connection to anyone you know. He wasn't even arrested by the Salem PD, and the charges aren't that serious."

That was just the news Eric had hoped for, but it was deflating all the same. In a wild flight of fancy, he had imagined that he was doing something to help his family even while he was stuck in prison. "Okay, thank you. Sorry to bother you."

"Not a bother!" snapped Roman. "You did exactly the right thing. I want you to call any time you think I can help you or you see something that doesn't seem quite right. I want you to call just to say hello. I miss you, Eric."

A lump rose in his throat. "Miss you, too, Dad."

As he hung up the phone, all of his concentration went into composing himself. He couldn't very well walk through the cell block whimpering and vulnerable. There was no place for that here.

Distracted as he was, he didn't see the first blow coming.

Off guard as he was, he didn't have a chance of blocking the second blow that knocked him unconscious.

* * *

Nicole downed a dirty martini at the hotel bar before making her way to the wedding. She would have preferred two or three martinis, but a morning spent with Belle had made Chloe a killjoy and Nicole was all but dragged by her hair to St. Luke's.

"Why is he having his wedding here?" Nicole demanded. "The last time he tried to get married here…"

The scene rose unbidden before her eyes. The horrible tape that proved to Eric that she hadn't been the one who had raped him. Eric's utter humiliation. Brady's conviction that Eric must have been the one who seduced Kristen. Her own anguish that Eric, who had more faith than anyone she had ever met, had need video proof to understand that she would never have hurt him in such a way.

"It's the last minute thing," Chloe was saying. "Scheduling. They don't want to have it at the Kiriakis Mansion because they still think Victor might have had something to do with Tate being kidnapped. They were looking at a conference room at Basic Black, the Brady Pub, or this. Theresa chose and Brady agreed."

"Isn't this where he married you?" asked Nicole, trying to push the memories of Brady pummeling Eric up on the altar out of her mind.

Chloe shrugged, and Nicole wondered if she was imagining the hurt in Chloe's voice. "It was a very long time ago. We've both been in love so many times since then. We've had children with other people! That binds you together forever, much more than some teenage romance."

Nicole bit her tongue to keep from reminding Chloe that she would never have personal experience with that. Instead, she strode into the sanctuary quickly enough to outrun the memories it held.

Belle was there already, talking to John, Roman, and a man Nicole vaguely recognized as Theresa's father, the famous Shane Donovan.

"Did you ask them about that card?" Nicole demanded a little too loudly, because she was not going to subject herself to a replay of her once-favorite fantasy, which had involved Eric and a confessional.

 _Bless me, Father, for I am about to sin…._

"Not yet," said Belle with a look of petulant superiority. (Eric was good at those too. It ran in the family.)

"What card is this?" asked Roman, who had slept with Nicole on one unfortunate occasion, and therefore gave her more credence than men who had not had the honor and pleasure.

Belle dug out Milo Harp's note and handed it over.

Roman clenched his fist and his jaw. "Thank you for bringing this to our attention, Nicole," he said.

"It means something to you?" asked Shane.

"Eric called me earlier today."

Eric. Why did it always have to be Eric? Why was he suddenly everywhere? Didn't the universe know that she was still mourning Daniel, and that she had Deimos and Dario ready to help her move on when she was good and ready, which she wasn't?

"What did Eric say?" asked John.

Apparently Eric had said that a man calling himself Milo Harp had made a veiled threat.

"I know we have security, but I'm going to stay outside and run it myself," Roman decided.

Shane and John objected, but Roman was adamant that he wasn't going to let anything spoil the day for John's son and Shane's daughter.

There was nothing left for Nicole to do but crawl into a pew beside Chloe and wait for the wedding and her memories to go away.

" _You're a hypocrite."_

" _What?"_

" _The guy gets a free pass and the woman gets all the judgmental—"_

" _No, not the woman. You, Nicole, and you damn well know why. What's going on here?"_

" _You know what's going on, Eric. You weren't always a priest, surely you have some memory."_

" _Of the other side of you?"_

" _What other side? Of the human side, the blood and flesh side?"_

" _No. No. You know better."_

" _You're the one who told me—"_

" _Vargas?!"_

"— _to give him a chance."_

" _Oh, come on!"_

" _You said we'd have something in common, and you know what? We do. You're the one who pushed me to him."_

" _Do not try and twist this around."_

" _You're the one who told me to keep an eye on him."_

" _Oh, so you thought you would just try to hook up with him in my office?"_

" _I did not hook up with him— no! I did not hook up with him in your office."_

" _You were very close, Nicole. And yes, I do remember!"_

She'd known ever since she'd first seen Eric in a clerical collar that God had a wicked sense of humor. But God liked to remind her from time to time.

When she and Eric hard argued about Vargas, she had been too angry and afraid to feel the depth of his frustration and jealousy. He'd been a priest, but he'd wanted her. He'd wanted her deeply and completely and badly, and seeing her making out with Vargas in his office had driven him to the brink of madness.

No wonder he'd accused her of being the one to attack him in his hotel room. Sex with her had been on his brain for months.

Even though she'd forgiven him for his accusations (of course she had), she'd never quite thought of it that way.

And now she was alone in the very same church (well, alone except for half of Eric's family) and wondering what it would have been like if they'd fallen into each other's arms on that day.

It didn't matter.

That hadn't happened.

"When does this stupid thing start?" Nicole asked Chloe.

Chloe rolled her eyes and didn't bother to respond.

 **Three.**

When Eric awoke, he was too confused to panic. This wasn't his apartment or a room above his grandmother's pub or the rectory; no, of course not, he was in prison. It wasn't prison, either, though, because prison didn't shake. An earthquake? He'd felt earthquakes before, and that wasn't right, either.

It took him a moment to recognize the intermittent jostling of a vehicle in motion.

He opened his eyes to see the back of a van, illuminated only by the glowing phone in Xander's hand.

 _Xander_.

"Hello, Sleeping Beauty," said Xander casually when he felt Eric's eyes on him.

"Your friends wouldn't let you ride in the front with them?" asked Eric. His heart pounded. He'd been in plenty of dangerous situations in his life, but he didn't especially thrive on them. Not the way his father and some of his uncles and cousins did.

"I volunteered for this position," said Xander. His voice remained calm, but every word dripped with a threat. "Since you and I have so much history, and all."

"Seems like a waste of your time," said Eric. "You're free. We're away from the prison. You don't need me as a hostage. Shouldn't you be on your way to some country that doesn't have an extradition treaty?"

"This isn't about my freedom," said Xander. "This is about revenge. Your services as hostage may yet be necessary. Don't discount yourself."

"Revenge against whom?" _Not Nicole, not Nicole…._

"Don't worry your pretty little head about things you cannot change."

Eric agreed that not worrying about things one couldn't change was basically good advice.

He didn't agree that this was something he couldn't change.

Xander hadn't tied him or chained him, perhaps because he hadn't expected Eric to awaken so quickly and perhaps because he simply hadn't had the means. Xander did have a gun, but he had let it drift lazily to his side, rather than holding it on Eric properly as soon as Eric roused.

There was an opportunity, and Eric would never again have the element of surprise that he had right this moment.

Ignoring his headache, he lunged across the van and grabbed at Xander's gun.

Xander reacted swiftly and knocked the gun out of his own reach as well as Eric's. For a long while, Eric and Xander wrestled and punched and scrambled in the tight confines of the van. At long last, Eric got his forearm against Xander's throat and choked Xander the way Xander had choked Nicole in her office a year before.

As much as he hated Xander, he was repulsed by the spasms of Xander's throat against his arm. He was revolted by the way Xander whimpered and struggled and tried to breathe.

 _Only until he passes out,_ Eric assured himself. _I won't kill him. I won't kill anyone. It's to buy enough time to warn my family, that's all._

His mother. His father. His grandmother. His brother and his sisters.

Was Sami here in Salem for Brady's wedding? Could he send her a message in that inexplicable way twins sometimes could? Would Sami understand that she had to make sure everyone was safe, even the people that she didn't really like?

It was worth a shot, he decided, and it was better than continuing to take stock of the fact that he was choking the life out of another human being.

 _They aren't safe, Samantha Gene. None of you. None of them. If you can't build a moat around that wedding, you have to stop it. Someone's going to hurt our family, Sami. I need your help. Please._

The van lurched to a stop, and Eric made his move. He let Xander crumble gasping against the side of the van and jumped to the far corner where the gun had skittered beneath what looked like a toolbox.

The doors of the van flew open to reveal Milo Harp and Clyde Weston. Both of them were armed, and Eric had a sinking sensation that both of them were better shots than he was.

"Well, this is just unfortunate," drawled Clyde, his weapon trained on Eric.

Milo carefully made his way to Xander's side. "It's all right, son," he soothed.

"Not your son," gasped Xander.

"I have a son that I love," said Milo. "He won't have anything to do with me, but I hope that whoever is with him now shows him kindness. And I will show you the kindness that your father would if he could."

"Not that I don't know where you're coming from with the estranged son thing, but the Kiriakises mostly eat their own young," Clyde opined without taking his eyes off of Eric.

Clyde wasn't young and impulsive like Xander. Eric was going to get nowhere with Clyde.

And as for Milo Harp…

It didn't seem likely that Milo Harp was an easier target than Clyde, but Eric knew from a lifetime spent as the son of a psychiatrist and a police officer that in a hostage situation, the hostage always had to try to connect with his captors. At the very least, he might learn something that would help his family if he survived the next five minutes.

"I'm sure your son can feel how much you love him, even if he's far away and he doesn't know what he's feeling," Eric told Milo. "It was like that for me when I was away from my parents."

"Was it now?" asked Milo with a pleasant interest that was at once completely logical and completely unhinged. "What was it like, being a child and hearing your father say that you would never see your mother again?"

"I try not to think about it," Eric said, bitterly resenting the need for absolute honesty. "At the time I didn't quite understand. I knew it was bad because my older sister was devastated. But my twin sister and I—"

"Samantha," Milo cooed, and Eric did not care for the way Milo pronounced Sami's name. "It's a shame she's not here today for this little family reunion. But I have eyes on her all the same. I certainly heard enough about her back then. Sami and Eric, Eric and Sami. You grew into a fine man, Eric. A credit to your mother."

"You know my mother?" asked Eric.

"Well enough," said Milo.

"And my father?" Eric prompted.

Milo's face froze in a violent grimace. "Come on, Alexandros. You've had long enough to catch your breath."

Xander obediently crawled out of the van and jumped to his feet in the bright sunlight outside.

It was still afternoon. It seemed like it ought to be night. What kind of prison break took place in broad daylight?

"I reckon we should gag him," said Clyde to Milo. His eyes hadn't once left Eric. "You want to do the honors?"

Milo cautiously approached Eric and plucked the gun from his hand. Eric let it go. He would regroup. There would be another opportunity.

" _What have we here?"_

Milo froze with one hand on Eric's cheek and the other on a rag that he intended to stuff in Eric's mouth.

"Dad?" whispered Eric in disbelief.

"Roman," whispered Milo just as quietly.

 **Four**.

Milo's touch had been gentle, almost reverent, on Eric's cheek as he'd begun to put the gag in place.

When Roman approached, though, Milo gripped Eric painfully and pressed the muzzle of his gun to Eric's temple.

"I wouldn't call for backup, Roman," said Milo gently. "Your son will die if you do."

"I'm putting my phone down," Roman obeyed. "You can see my hands. I'll do it nice and slow for you. Do you want it on the ground?"

 _The village was burning. The rebels— the terrorists— drank and danced in the streets as the villagers huddled miserably and watched their lives go up in smoke, quite literally._

 _Eric's eyes came to rest on Neema. She was thirteen years old, or not much more, but the resignation he saw in her as she folded up her long legs to crouch near her mother belonged to someone who had seen centuries of suffering._

 _And yet, Neema was pretty in her devastation. She glowed with intelligence and promise in the way very few people did._

" _It's time to make an example of somebody," shouted the rebel leader. He jerked Neema roughly to her feet and put his gun to her head._

 _Neema's mother began to cry and beg, and some faraway memory deep within Eric stirred._

" _Stop!" Eric took a step forward. "These people are innocent. They haven't done anything wrong."_

 _The rebel leader met Eric's challenge. "All right. Anybody in this place, they can just stand up and take Neema's place."_

 _Eric didn't step forward._

" _Take me," said Father Ryan._

Eric was a person who learned from his mistakes. This time, he found his voice.

"Don't do it, Dad," Eric called to Roman. "Don't let them use me as leverage. Stop them from hurting everyone else in our family, everyone else in Salem, even if it means they kill me."

"Intriguing," mused Milo. "Roman, would you like to sacrifice your only son's life so your impostor's son can finish getting married before I kill him?"

"What did Brady ever do to you?" Eric objected.

"Less than you have, I suppose," said Milo. "Certainly less than he has." Milo's eyes met Roman's with a hard, hard look.

"Why don't you and I sit down and talk about it, then?" offered Roman.

"That time passed before your son was even born." Milo ground the gun harder against Eric's temple. "The years have changed you. They've changed me, too. I do believe, though, that you ought to remember your old partner before I make you suffer as you made me suffer."

The gun clicked against Eric's head.

Something else clicked inside his head at that same moment.

His father's old partner, bent on revenge.

Marlena's disappearance when he and Sami hadn't been much more than toddlers.

Milo Harp.

Harp.

Orpheus, the legendary musician. Orpheus played a harp.

Orpheus, whose actions had shaped every day of Eric's life.

"Are you Orpheus?" Eric asked.

"You're smarter than your father," breathed Milo. Faster than Eric could register what he was doing, Milo turned the gun on Roman and squeezed the trigger. Two bullets hit Roman in the chest at point-blank range; a third clipped his leg with an explosion of blood.

Eric tried to run forward, but while Milo had released his grip, Xander and Clyde were more than ready to push him back into the truck. When Clyde let go of Eric's arm to shove the heavy gag into Eric's mouth, Eric lunged forward a final time. His fingers wrapped around the lip of the van; he could see Roman lying on the pavement.

Xander slammed the door, hard, on Eric's outstretched fingers. Eric fell to his knees in pain, trapped once again in the darkness of the van.

"Your father's beyond rescue, but ask your God if he'll save your hand," Xander offered sarcastically from somewhere Eric couldn't see or reach.

* * *

Theresa walked down the aisle, accompanied by her father, and Nicole found herself so drained of jealousy and resentment as to be bored. Maybe Chloe had been right to deny her that second martini.

When at long last Theresa and Eve and Brady and Paul were all standing at the altar, Tate cooing in a stroller beside them, and Nicole detachedly wondered at the falseness of it all. How well did Eve and Theresa even know each other? How long had it been since Brady and Paul had met? And Tate, while adorable and loved, hadn't been planned or anticipated. He had been presented fully formed to his parents as the product of a bizarre Kristen DiMera special and had somehow pulled them together instead of apart.

Not that Nicole was even certain that Brady and Theresa liked each other. Their arguments during Tate's kidnapping had seemed to suggest otherwise.

Nicole was delighted when she felt the phone in her purse vibrate urgently.

"Sorry," she whispered to Chloe, who appeared not to think that Nicole was sorry at all. "This could be important." Nicole slid out of the pew and into the entranceway between the sanctuary and the front door.

She almost threw the phone down in disgust when she looked at the caller ID and realized that her savior was Sami. For several seconds she glanced from the phone to the door and back again. Which fate was worse?

She pushed the "accept" button.

"Sami, don't you know that your brother's wedding is taking place right now?" she snapped in lieu of a greeting.

" _Yes, Nicole, I know that a little too well,"_ Sami snapped back. _"Everyone in my family has an agreement not to take my calls during weddings. They either turn their phones off completely or they block me temporarily."_

"I guess after you interrupt four or five weddings, people will start doing that," Nicole suggested helpfully.

" _And the worst part is, even Lucas did it today! Lucas! What if I needed to call him about Allie?"_

"Is something wrong with Allie?"

" _No, but every one of you at that church is in danger. Did Brady use his brain for once in his life and get security?"_

Nicole's hands went numb and her heart dropped in her chest. She had had a bad feeling about the wedding all day. No matter how ridiculous Sami usually was, Nicole was inclined to believe her this time. "In danger from whom, Sami?"

Nicole could almost see Sami biting her lower lip. _"I don't know."_

"What's going to happen?"

" _I don't know."_

"Why do you think something is going to happen?" Nicole dragged the words out slowly, as if she were speaking to a very small, none too intelligent, child.

" _Eric told me."_

Nicole really didn't like the way Eric's name was in the air today. "Eric called you from prison? Because I happen to know that he called your father, too, and Roman went outside to talk to the security crew himself—"

" _No. Not like that. I felt him. He was afraid, and he was angry, and he felt helpless. He couldn't call. He needed me to do it."_

Nicole sighed and slumped against the narrow door that led to the rickety staircase to the back corridor. "Sami, you do not have a magical twin radar that lets Eric contact you whenever he wants to."

" _Listen to me, Nicole—"_

Nicole ended the call just as she heard the unmistakeable pop of a gun with a silencer.

When the front door flew open, she jumped backward through the nearest door.

 **Five**.

Nicole was glad that she'd ended the phone call when she did. It would have been fitting if she'd died at the hands of a group of gun-wielding psychos because they'd overheard Sami's shrieking from 3000 miles away and found her hiding place.

It was considerably less fitting that she was in a hiding place at all because of Sami.

No, not because of Sami.

Because of Eric.

Eric who was suddenly everywhere: in his young niece's solicitousness, on his father's and sister's minds, lingering in the very air of this church.

"God damn you, Eric Brady," she whispered, not caring that he might have saved her life, not caring that she was in a church. She rolled her eyes at herself. "Although I suppose you're punishing Eric pretty well without sending him to hell. Having him know that his family is in danger and there's absolutely nothing that he can do about it?"

She shivered in sympathy, painfully reminded of her mother's death. Seeing Fay lying there motionless on a hospital bed had hit Nicole like a physical blow. It had been like wanting to go home and knowing that she would never again have a home to go to, even if that childhood home had been full of resentment that Fay had never managed to remove her children from Paul's reach. All the beatings Brandon had taken while Nicole had been stranded on the other side of a locked door, able to do nothing for the one person she had really and truly loved back then…

Nicole shook off the memories of her family and the memories of Eric. She had to focus on the here and now and protect herself so that she could help Chloe and Brady and everyone else at the wedding.

She stepped out of her heels, not wanting to risk the clicking sound they made on the cement floor of the bare passageway, and crept further into the darkness. The shouts were loud enough to reach her ears.

" _NO ONE MOVE!"_ She'd know that voice anywhere. It was Xander. Things would not have gone well if he'd seen her, but she would have liked one last chance to punch him in the face.

" _This here's what we call a hostage situation,"_ drawled a second voice, deceptively slow and calm. She knew him, too. It was sicko Clyde Weston. _"All cell phones and weapons will be provided to young Mr. Kiriakis, please. This is your grace period. Anyone found with one of these items after the grace period will be shot on sight."_

There had been a prison break, then. Eric had caught word of the plan and had tried to warn his family. It all made sense, and it all sucked.

She retreated to the farthest part of the corridor and dialed 911. She reported gunplay at St. Luke's church, along with a prison break and a hostage situation. The dispatcher advised her to stay quiet and stay where she was.

Nicole had no problem taking that advice.

She sank to the floor and listened.

The last bit of the puzzle fell into place when she heard a third voice, one she didn't know, introduce himself as Milo Harp.

" _No_ ," gasped Marlena. " _Orpheus_."

"Orpheus?" asked Brady. _"Aren't you the one who… the one who…."_

" _Young Mr. Black. I had heard that you were not the brightest star in the sky, but your inability to so much as complete a sentence disappoints me all the same. And Marlena was so eager to take you in when you lost your mother, while she couldn't spare a drop of compassion for my children when they were orphaned by her husband's hand!"_

" _Your children weren't orphaned! They had you!"_ Marlena protested. _"You were the one who chose vengeance over them."_

" _I fought to get a mother for my children! Roman Brady was the one who callously murdered a woman, and Roman Brady's children were the ones who should have borne the consequences. And they did."_

" _You stole years from Sami and Eric and me that we will never get back. Eric and Sami to this day make choices that I don't believe they ever would have made had their mother not been taken away from them! You had your vengeance. What more do you want?"_

The Orpheus character didn't seem to be any too interested in answering Marlena's question. _"There's a certain irony to it, isn't there?"_ he asked. _"You weren't Roman Brady, you weren't the man who murdered my wife, and yet you were the one who tried to murder me. Who thought he had killed me, no doubt,"_ he said, and Nicole understood that Orpheus had turned his attention to John. _"So this is between you and me, now. Roman is dead."_

From behind the safety of her wall, Nicole felt the wave of horror and grief that washed through the room. There were gasps; there were a few muffled tears.

And there was a realization that Roman wouldn't be able to do anything to stop the carnage inside. None of them knew that Nicole had been able to call the police, for whatever questionable good that might do them.

She wished that she could comfort them. She wished that she could send Chloe or Brady a message the way Eric had been able to signal Sami.

" _All right, it's between you and me,"_ John agreed. _"Let the rest of these people go."_

Sharp laughter punctuated the room. _"Mr. Milo Harp Orpheus isn't the only one with a score to settle, now is he?"_ asked Clyde.

" _Yes, Clyde has been promised his woman, and Alexandros has been promised his,"_ agreed Orpheus.

There was a scuffle and an annoyed grunt that Nicole knew belonged to Kate. Kate, of course, was Clyde's "woman;" who the hell was Xander's? Nicole shivered.

Xander was going to come for her.

He would strangle her, he would try to burn her to death, he would find her…

There was a cacophony of shrieks and a loud objection from Brady.

That was it. It was Theresa's word that had sent Xander to prison, and it was Theresa against whom Xander wanted revenge.

Relief and guilt coursed through Nicole as she heard Xander drag Theresa away, screaming, at gunpoint.

And there was a tiny bit of offense, too. Nicole didn't even rate on Xander's vengeance list any longer?

" _All right,"_ John resumed. _"There are still people here who have nothing to do with any of this."_

" _Which one of your sons would you like to see die in front of your eyes? The baseball star you just met or the rather dull-witted one that you were able to raise? No fair choosing Roman's son. He's been dealt with."_

" _What do you mean, 'dealt with?'"_ Marlena demanded.

" _Eric is with his father,"_ Orpheus informed her.

Eric was in prison.

Eric was with Roman.

Roman was dead.

Eric was… dead?

Nicole wanted to rage and scream and beat on the walls. She wanted to pace the length of the corridor throwing things as she went. She wanted to run into the sanctuary and rip out Orpheus' throat twice: once for what he'd done to Eric as a child and once for what he'd done to Eric today.

All of the above would have been suicide.

And Nicole couldn't do suicide when there was so much need for vengeance.

If Orpheus and his little friends thought they had cornered the market on vengeance, they were sadly mistaken.

She glared at Orpheus through the wall, mindless of the tears that were soaking her cheeks.

 **Six**.

At first sheer terror kept Nicole bolt upright at rigid attention in her dark hiding place. She couldn't see what was going on, but she imagined Orpheus swinging his gun between Brady and Paul, taunting John to make a choice.

The part of her that she would never reveal to anyone— not her brother, not her best friend, not a therapist, not a priest— was wishing that John would just choose Brady and get it over with.

Paul was a nice kid from what Nicole knew. Handsome, too, and she didn't even care that he was gay since the fact that he shared a name with her piece of shit father made him fundamentally unattractive to her on a visceral level anyway. She didn't want Paul to die.

But Brady… well, there was no comparison. She couldn't imagine that there was really a comparison for John, either. Brady could be a pain in the ass sometimes, but John had raised and loved him all his life. He'd barely begun to make Paul's acquaintance.

John probably would have shot Nicole dead on the spot if he'd been able to hear her thoughts. She didn't feel guilty.

She'd lost Eric. She sure as hell wasn't losing Brady. She was a survivor, but she was not going to walk forward in that kind of a world.

As the minutes wore on, though, Nicole began to realize that Orpheus wasn't going murder Paul _or_ Brady, at least not now. Orpheus wanted to torture John and Marlena, and that meant extending the agony of their uncertainty.

And once Nicole realized that, she became suddenly, unexpectedly unable to focus on the hostage situation unfolding on the other side of the wall. Over and over, her thoughts looped back to Orpheus' understated announcement.

 _Eric is with his father._

It wouldn't have been so bad if Nicole had had something else to focus on. If she had been in the sanctuary with the other hostages, she would have been busy annoying the captors or holding Tate or keeping Brady from losing his temper and getting himself shot.

Nicole was a survivor. Nicole got things done even when she felt miserable. Nicole could move through the pain. She'd survived her father and his film crew of dirty old men. She'd survived her marriages to Trent and Victor. She'd survived the loss of her daughter and her son and her mother.

There had always been something to focus on, except perhaps for those first weeks after the death of the little boy she'd carried inside her for a full nine months.

And then Eric had arrived.

 _Eric is with his father._

Eric, who told her that she was a good person while she wondered if she would ever be able to see what he saw, just once.

Eric, who, when a drug addict held a gun to his head, talked the man into turning himself in and getting treatment.

Eric, who built schools and prison outreach programs and stayed up all night with dying parishioners.

Eric, who had finally, when it was too late for them, forgiven her for destroying the documents that reopened the door to the priesthood.

Eric, who she hadn't forgiven for a drunken accident.

 _Eric is with his father._

"If I forgave you now, would you be able to hear me?" she whispered under her breath.

 _Eric is with his father._

No. She didn't think he would. That was how it went with Nicole and Eric. They always heard each other except when it was most important.

When they'd first been engaged, he'd told her that he loved her and would be able to handle anything about her past. She hadn't trusted him. She'd married Lucas instead, not entirely because of the money the way everyone else seemed to remember it, but because Lucas had never had the sweet innocent air about him that Eric had had. Lucas had looked at her past life as Misty Circle without blinking or flinching. She hadn't given Eric the chance.

When she'd fallen for him again years later, when she'd fantasized about relieving him of his vow of celibacy but Kristen was the one who had done it, Eric had blamed her. He'd accused her of rape, and no accusation had ever hurt her so badly in her life. There were lines that even Nicole Walker never crossed, and Eric of all people, deep down, didn't know it. She'd wanted to comfort him and support him and help him find justice. Eric hadn't given her the chance.

When all had been forgiven as far as rape accusations went, she had risked life and limb to help him return to the Church if that was what he really wanted. Then, at the last moment, when she had fought longer and harder than anyone else and found the evidence that no one else could find, she had panicked and shredded it. Eric had told her, later, that he'd been prepared to choose her over his vocation back them. She hadn't given Eric the chance.

When Eric, furious and willfully blind, had been swept into the machinations of Serena and Xander and their elephants, Nicole would have done anything to protect him. He hadn't given her the chance.

And when Eric had come around and she might have forgiven him, she might have tried once more to get their timing right, she might have offered him her hand when he'd hit rock bottom as he had more than once done for her…

It didn't matter. There were no more chances.

 _Eric is with his father._

Outside in the sanctuary, Orpheus had turned his attention to Belle and Belle was answering him with just the right amount of spunk: enough to let everyone know that she couldn't be broken so easily, but not enough to aggravate Orpheus into opening fire on the whole group of them.

Nicole was impressed.

That ran in the family. They looked like fragile little sanctimonious drips, and then all of a sudden you saw the steel.

Eric had fought Orpheus and Xander and Clyde. Nicole had no doubt of that. He'd fought with words the way he'd fought the junkie in the church. He'd fought with his fists the way he'd fought Xander in her office, or her awful ex-boyfriend Jay a million years ago. He'd fought with his will the way he'd fought off the fever brought on by Kristen's rape drugs in the hotel room.

Had it been slow or fast? Had it been bloody and painful? Had he felt any sort of peace? Had he known that she would think of him like this?

 _Eric is with his father._

It didn't matter.

It was over.

Nicole brushed away her tears.

 _ **Seven.  
**_

The pain blocked out everything else. Eric crouched on the floor of the van and clutched the shattered fingers of his right hand with the unharmed fingers of his left. He knew that sooner or later he would have to let go, but he couldn't bring himself to do it yet. There wasn't enough light in the van to evaluate the damage, and anyway the pain left him with no thoughts to spare for the humiliation of the rough gag in his mouth, the shame of his failure to save his family, or the agony of his father's death.

He listened as hard as he could. He didn't hear moans or shouts or whimpers from the other side of the door. Roman must be dead.

He had taken two shots to the chest. There was no other way.

Eric's mother, though, was still alive. He had a brother and a sister and a niece and a nephew inside the wedding hall.

It shot through his mind that every moment that he spent cradling his injured hand was a moment he let them all down all over again.

There would be time for grief and self-recrimination later. Eric knew about compartmentalizing. Ironically enough, Orpheus had been the one to teach him. He and Sami had known, instinctively, that it was their job to be happy when John and Carrie had been so sad about losing Marlena. When they'd gotten to be teenagers, Sami had tossed out the idea of ever hiding her feelings about anything, but Eric had embraced it all the harder.

He forced himself to ignore the sticky blood the way he ignored everything else as he uncurled his good hand and began to feel his way around the truck. There had been tools in the corner. Maybe something would open the door. At the very least, he might find something that would pry the gag out of his mouth (he was unable to untie the knot one-handed) or be good for banging on the walls of the van to let a passerby know someone was trapped inside.

Would there be a passerby? He had no idea where the van was parked. There were so many unknowns.

His good fingers found a wrench in the dark, and he settled himself against the door, using it alternately to poke his gag and to poke the latch on the door.

The latch sprang free first, and he was confronted with slanting early autumn sunset and a familiar loading dock.

St. Luke's. Of all the places in the world that they could have chosen, his prison break kidnappers had picked St. Luke's.

Of all the places in the world that Brady could have married Theresa, he had picked St. Luke's. Eric loved Brady fiercely, but sometimes he wondered about him in a rather uncharitable way.

Eric headed resolutely for the back entrance. It was well-hidden; not even the parishioners knew about it. He would be able to get in without tipping off Xander and Orpheus.

" _Stop_! _Police_!"

Eric stopped and hoped with everything in him that it really was the police. He turned around slowly, as he had been taught to do in just such a situation, and recognized his cousin a split second before his cousin recognized him.

"Eric," Shawn breathed with a sympathy that had Eric wishing that almost anyone else had found him. Anger and loathing and psychotic mortal enemies he could handle. Compassion was going to be his undoing, and he couldn't afford to be undone.

He resolutely forced back the tears while Shawn made fast work of the gag. "Uncle Roman said they had you in the HVAC truck," Shawn explained. "You got out on your own? Good for you."

"Dad shouldn't have called," said Eric. "They told him not to call— no, I told him to call even though they said they'd kill me. That's why they killed him. I saw it. Two shots right in his chest." His bad advice had gotten his father killed. He'd tried to help and he'd made everything worse.

Shawn had grabbed Eric tightly by the shoulders and was saying something, but Eric didn't hear.

Shawn kept talking. "Bullet proof vest. Bullet proof vest. Bullet proof—"

"Vest," Eric whispered. Of course Roman had been wearing a vest. The bullets would have knocked him down and hurt like hell, but they wouldn't have been fatal.

Shawn, who knew exactly what it was to be the son of a cop who was forever putting himself in danger, nodded when Eric understood. "He'll be okay. He'll want to know you're okay. I'll walk you back outside the the police line, and you can call him on your way to the hospital." Shawn flicked his eyes to Eric's bloody hand. "They'll want to check you out."

"Not going," said Eric firmly. He was grateful to his little cousin, but he wasn't going to be bossed around. "Not going anywhere but into that church."

"You can't get in even if you want to," Shawn objected. "They're watching the doors. If Clyde and the others don't get you, the friendly fire will."

"You really think I can't get into this church?"

There was a frantic flash in Shawn's eyes.

"Belle and Claire are in there, aren't they?" Eric asked, a little too manipulatively. "Why aren't you with them?"

"Belle and I had this fight. Well. Not important. Look, if you know a way in, you have to—"

"Take the opportunity now before they have a chance to realize that we're planning something. They're watching the rest of the cops out by the doors they know about, but they aren't watching us."

Shawn hesitated, and made a subtle gesture to someone to join them.

"Fine," he said. "You show us, and you can come. But you stay down and back if anything happens because you aren't armed and you aren't trained."

Eric nodded his agreement. He didn't even cross his fingers. Not that he could.

 **Eight**.

The thought crossed Nicole's mind that she might as well leave her hiding place because letting the trio of psychos know they had another hostage was superior to one more minute alone. She'd never been good at being alone.

"Don't be stupid, Nicole," she said out loud.

She froze, rigid in her hiding place again.

No one had heard. She had wandered closer to the entrance while trying to shake off thoughts of Eric and return her focus to the goings-on on the other side of the wall, but they weren't near the entrance, were they? Clyde had said something about taking Kate and taking off, but Nicole would have had to have had the worst possible timing—

" _What was that?"_ came Clyde's voice. _"You hear anything, Kate?"_

" _The lovely organ music, the birds singing outside, children laughing in the streets, and that might be an ice cream truck,"_ suggested Kate unhelpfully. Nicole had to admire Kate's nerve. Not everyone could toss out that much sarcasm when there was doubtless a gun pressed into her side.

" _I always did love your sense of humor,"_ said Clyde, and another chill ran down Nicole's spine. Clyde didn't need to get angry or threaten. Clyde was in control, and Clyde was smart enough to know it, for all of his good-old-boy drawling. " _A spiritual man like me knows than any house of God has some back corridors. Get the choir in and out. Hide the child molesting priests when the police come. That sort of thing."_

" _I wouldn't know. I'm not a spiritual woman."_

The door opened with a bang, and Nicole held herself very still. She might not be visible in the shadows. The light didn't reach all the way down the hallway.

"You can come out with your hands up, or I can start shooting blindly down this here secret passageway," said Clyde pleasantly.

It was possible that he couldn't see her.

It wasn't possible that he would miss if aimed his gun in her general direction.

"I'll come out," Nicole answered.

 _Be careful what you wish for._ Right. Nicole was never going to learn that particular lesson no matter how many times God or the universe or her subconscious tried to teach her.

* * *

Eric swallowed his irritation at Shawn taking the time to brief the other cop. The cop happened to be one Roman had mentioned as a good cop from time to time, so Eric at least knew that he wasn't going to betray them to Orpheus. And the cop nodded when Shawn explained that they were not going to send Eric away because Eric had promised to stay down and back.

Eric led them to the hidden door. The door wasn't a secret so much as it was useless. The steps leading down to it were crooked and uneven. They were hard to walk even if you were young and healthy; the older priests and parishioners would not have been able to descend them safely. The parish's budget had never allowed for something unnecessary like correcting the landscaping to make use of the door. No one had ever mourned it as a great loss; there were other doors, after all, and this one happened to open inconveniently close to the altar.

The other cop whispered to Shawn and Eric that one of the hostages had managed to call 911 early on and that as far as they knew everyone was gathered in the sanctuary. "Sounded like the guns came out right before the 'I dos.'"

"Poor Brady," Eric muttered, even if he still questioned Brady's sanity for having his wedding here in the first place. There was something to be said for the ability to move on— it was not a strength of Eric's, and he knew it— but sometimes his brother swung too far in the other direction.

Shawn and the other cop looked at Eric so speculatively that he almost rolled his eyes. He had promised to stay down and back, and and he wasn't going to break that promise because he felt sorry for Brady.

Of course, he would break that promise if someone in his family was in imminent danger. His father was alive. Everyone else was going to stay alive, too.

Eric didn't say that aloud. Instead, he explained exactly where the door would open, how easily they could be exposed, and how close they would be to the center of the action.

He let them enter first, but he followed close behind.

* * *

"You've put me behind schedule, Miss Walker," said Clyde as he gestured at her with the gun while keeping a tight hold on Kate. "My friend and I were just leaving, and now we'll have to escort you back to the party."

"Don't put yourself out," said Nicole, but Clyde's face was hard and set as he called to Orpheus (Xander had dragged Theresa off somewhere, thankfully) that someone had tried to outsmart them.

"Do you know what I do to people who try to outsmart me?" asked Orpheus. "Come up here. Right here, by the altar. Fitting spot for the woman who spent years pining after a priest, isn't it?" Nicole's legs betrayed her and shook a little.

Orpheus raised the gun. Nicole had just enough time to recognize that he was starting to squeeze the trigger and this wasn't for show, but not enough time to move, to take her chance at running like she should have done hours before.

This was it.

* * *

The first thing Eric saw was Orpheus purposefully raising his gun to Nicole. Nicole was overwhelmed. Nicole didn't know how close she was to a rescue. Nicole wasn't going to move.

He didn't need to see a second thing.

In the tiniest fraction of a second everything made sense.

Orpheus would be just as satisfied with a dead Eric as with a dead Nicole, and Eric's life was already in ruins. Shawn would be in a position to take Orpheus out in just a few more heartbeats. Shawn wouldn't miss. Belle and Claire were in danger and he would always protect them. Of all of Eric's siblings, Belle was the one who worried him least, ironically enough, since she was the baby.

No one else would be hurt. Just the exchange of Eric for Nicole.

It was beyond fitting.

Eric pushed Nicole to the ground just as Orpheus squeezed the trigger.

The sound of gunfire filled his ears and the scent of blood filled his nostrils, but he could see and feel Nicole beneath him, and that was all that mattered.

 _ **Nine.**_

Nicole struggled to orient herself amidst the screaming and gunshots. Orpheus' gun had fired and she was on the ground but she didn't feel any pain. The one thing that made sense right away was the sense that her body was entangled with Eric's.

She was always going to be entangled with Eric. There wasn't any escaping that. Sometimes Nicole felt like a slow learner, but time had certainly taught her that even if she stayed away from Eric for years— over a decade!— all he had to do was turn his head to look at her and her life would be upended again. At first the upending would seem to be for the best. Then it would turn out to be for the worst.

And if they were dead, and she was well aware that she'd been told he was dead, it made sense that they were in hell.

There was no way that heaven was full of guns and wet, sticky blood.

She hadn't really expected heaven, anyway. She'd hoped for it, sometimes, but deep down she knew that a woman who hired hit men and blackmailed freely and shot people and stole babies and married filthy old men for their money and committed adultery was going to end up in hell if there happened to be an afterlife. As for Eric, well, the death of Daniel had probably sealed his fate.

"Eric," she whispered, as if she hadn't told him months ago that she would never forgive him and never intended to speak to him again. "Is this hell?"

"No. Not enough brimstone or worms," said Eric, and the raspy groan that escaped as he spoke did more than his words to convince her that they were, after all, alive.

They were alive, and Eric was hurt.

She was alive because Eric had saved her.

She didn't feel any pain because the hot blood currently soaking through her dress wasn't hers. It was Eric's.

"Okay, baby," she murmured, not knowing quite where the endearment had come from. "You're on top of me and I need to get out from under you so we can put pressure on the wound and stop the bleeding."

"Doesn't matter," said Eric dreamily. He made no effort to move.

"Unless you tell me you got the fastest medical degree ever in prison, I'm going to go with my own judgment on this one," Nicole told him. She wriggled out from beneath him without any help. "Are you going into shock or something? Because I'm pretty sure shock is bad."

He didn't respond, but instead watched her curiously as though he didn't quite understand what she was doing as she began to divest him of the blue prison shirt. "All the times I fantasized about stripping you down in this church, I never thought about it happening this way," she told him.

He laughed, and the laugh became a groan when she got the shirt over his arms. She could see now where the bullet had torn through his upper arm. Better that than his chest, she thought resolutely as she wrapped the shirt around the wound and pressed down.

"It would be eternal torment, though," he mused, his pain-brightened eyes locking on hers. "Having to look at you forever and knowing you would never forgive me."

"Of course I forgive you, jackass," she blurted out. She didn't know where she'd gotten the _jackass_ any more than she knew where she'd gotten the _baby_.

"If I'd died it would have made it even," he said. "As much as it could be. My life for the life of Daniel's fiancee."

"No, if you'd died it would have sucked. I know that because I thought you were dead for most of the day. Now shut up and stop bleeding."

"Interesting bedside manner, Nicole," said Kayla, not unkindly. Nicole hadn't heard Kayla approach, and she shifted to let Kayla get a better look at the patient. A moment later, Marlena was there, too, and then the EMTs and paramedics arrived.

Nicole backed away shakily, half-considering demanding to be allowed to ride to the hospital with Eric and half-glad that she seemed to have been forgotten. She didn't want to hear Marlena's reprimands for almost getting Eric killed just yet.

Once Eric was out of sight, Nicole took stock of the room. Xander was back in handcuffs; Orpheus appeared to be dead, or close to it. It looked like Clyde, the smartest and least crazy of them all, had escaped with Kate. Friends and families had divided into tight, tearful knots. Nicole felt more alone watching them than she had felt the whole time she had been trapped in the passageway.

She wandered down the aisle, reaching out to touch Chloe as she walked by. Chloe responded with a quick squeeze of Nicole's shoulder.

When she passed Abe, he interrupted his rapid-fire conversation with half a dozen law enforcement types to tell her that he had texted Brandon that they were fine but she should call him anyway. Nicole nodded her understanding, but she didn't think Abe had even seen, so quickly had he returned to the task at hand.

The only group left to pass were the not-so-happy couple, and then she would be out on the street, free to go home, shower, have a few more martinis, and decide what she was going to say to Eric when she visited him in the hospital.

"We'll have this conversation tomorrow," Theresa was saying. She was clutching her son and flanked by her parents and sister. Nicole wondered what it would feel like to be that surrounded by a loving family.

"Fine, tomorrow," said Brady, but he didn't sound happy. Nicole didn't think he had noticed her, but he grabbed her wrist hard and wouldn't let go. "You're all right?" he demanded. "Is that blood?"

"Eric's blood," she said, and saying the words out loud made her dizzy.

"What the hell? How is he? Where is he?"

"They're taking him to the hospital. He's walking and talking and it looked like the bullet just grazed him but it was still a lot of blood."

"Then you're coming with me." He shot Theresa a glare that Nicole usually didn't associate with brides and grooms and wedding days. "And we will talk tomorrow."

Brady dragged Nicole rapidly from the church and toward his car.

"Don't ask," he instructed.

"Give me your jacket," she answered. She was all right with being ordered around by Brady, but she wasn't all right with strangers' eyes locking on her bloody dress. It was too raw. It was too personal. But the feelings would vanish as soon as she wrapped Brady's suit jacket around herself. They had to.

 _ **Ten.**_

It turned out that Brady's suit jacket didn't have the magical power to make Nicole forget that she was covered with the blood of the man she'd sworn never to forgive, who for extra complications was both her first love and Brady's brother.

However, being shoved into the position of Brady's impromptu assistant did provide a welcome distraction. She was glad to be doing something at last.

The first thing Brady did was hand her his keys and ask if she was all right to drive. When she agreed that she was, he used her as a chauffeur while he called half of his family. He used the speakerphone so that Nicole could hear, and she let the car wobble over the yellow lines in relief when Brady got confirmation that Roman wasn't actually dead. A few other people had been hit in the crossfire but no one's condition had been deemed especially serious. They didn't have a specific update on Eric, but the report came that Marlena was still with him, and Nicole meanly thought that they would hear Marlena's shrieks all over Salem if anything had happened to Eric. She didn't share her conclusions with Brady, though. She didn't think that he would appreciate it.

She also didn't think he would appreciate her commentary when he called an attorney well known for his work in child custody and put him on retainer. "It's only a precaution. For now," Brady explained.

She wasn't that surprised when they checked in at the courthouse and made sure the marriage license had not been filed.

She _was_ amused when Brady had half of the food from the reception, and the entire wedding cake, divided into to-go boxes, with instructions that the remainder could be given to anyone who happened to arrive, invited or not, and disposed of at the end of the night.

"She did this, I get the cake," said Brady tersely, as if Nicole had been criticizing him.

"Sounds reasonable," said Nicole. "Are we going to drive around Salem ceremonially throwing cake at everything that reminds of us of romance?"

Brady smiled wryly, and Nicole appreciated the smile even though it didn't hit his eyes. "Tempting, but no. Drive yourself home."

"Are you sure?"

He nodded. "You need to get a shower and get out of that dress." It was true, but she didn't like to think that their little adventure was over. "Thank you, Nicole," added Brady with utter sincerity. "Most people would have said 'screw you, I was just held hostage all afternoon and you're asking me for favors?' You just covered up the blood and kept going. If I don't tell you enough, I really appreciate your friendship, and I really like you."

"Like you, too," Nicole echoed.

"Do you want to come to the hospital with me or is that the absolute last place that you want to go?"

"I want to come," she said without even thinking about it. "You'll wait for me?"

"I'll wait for you."

"You'll make sure there aren't any creepy escaped prisoners hiding under the bed?"

"I was going to do that anyway," said Brady.

And so Nicole stripped off the dress while Brady was making a loud, comical search that was clearly designed more to make her laugh than to assure her that no one was lurking in the shadows to grab her.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and looked away as soon as she did. The blood had soaked through her dress and left red-brown patterns on her skin, a perverse sort of art project by the photographer.

She jumped into the shower, leaving the bathroom door open so that she would be able to hear Brady. The last thing she wanted to be was alone. Facing Eric would be easier than that by far.

Eventually Brady's voice came closer again and told her that the police wanted her dress as evidence but that she could keep his jacket because it looked better on her than on him. She couldn't bring herself to laugh, but she managed not to cry, and she counted that as a victory as she watched Eric's blood swirl down the shower drain.

* * *

Marlena fussed over Eric and promised him any number of things that he didn't really want, like the best medical care and the best lawyers to make certain that he wouldn't return to prison unless and until it was absolutely safe.

She was thoroughly unwilling to let him see Roman, though, which was the only thing Eric genuinely did want at the moment.

"Your Aunt Kayla checked on him," Marlena assured with the voice she used to speak to distraught patients and small children. "He is going to be fine, and you will have lots of time to speak with him after you have been taken care of. He wouldn't have it any other way."

That was undoubtedly true, but Eric didn't have to like it.

The doctors determined that he needed surgery on his left arm but that it would be better left until the next day. The fingers on his right hand, which still hurt more than the bullet wound, were miraculously unbroken but were bandaged and iced. He had thought that they would let him see his father after that, but the nurse noticed the knot on his head and Marlena launched into an anxious diatribe about why hadn't Eric mentioned that he had been knocked out, and had he forgotten?

He hadn't forgotten, precisely; he just hadn't thought to mention it. Being kidnapped for use as a hostage or a human shield made for a very long day. After what seemed like an eternity, the doctor and nurses agreed that Eric was not in imminent danger of much of anything and were persuaded to allow him to visit Roman.

"Not long, Dr. Evans," one of them told Marlena deferentially as she gave Eric's wheelchair a push. (More stupid hospital policy; there wasn't anything wrong with his legs.) "He needs to get into his own bed and rest."

Eric knew for a fact that prison beds were more comfortable than hospital beds, so that was one more stupid hospital policy, but he bit his lip and let himself be escorted to Roman's room.

As they'd promised, his father was alive. He hadn't doubted them, but it was better to see with his own eyes.

"Hey, Eric," said Roman.

"Ten minutes, and only ten minutes," said Marlena severely. "I'll be back."

"Thanks, Doc," said Roman, and Eric managed a thank you of his own before he stood up from the wheelchair and walked to his father's bedside.

"You supposed to be doing that?" Roman asked.

"Probably not," said Eric.

"I'd do the same thing," said Roman. "Glad to see you're well enough to be pissed off about all the stupid rules. I wanted them to let me come and sit with you while they were checking you out, and you can guess what they said."

Eric smiled. "Mom had it covered."

"I know she did."

"But I really needed to see you," Eric admitted. The image of the bullets hitting Roman square in the chest rose before his eyes, he hoped for the last time. "It didn't occur to me that you were wearing a vest until— well, at all. Shawn had to tell me about five times before I understood."

"I was afraid of that." Roman reached up and caressed Eric's hair. "Nothing to worry about, though. Your old man's tougher than that. I'll be on crutches for a little while and that's all. They'll let me out of here before they let you out."

"Mom seems to want to keep me here," said Eric petulantly. He hadn't ever had the opportunity to be a teenager playing one parent against the other, thanks in part to Orpheus. He wondered if this was what it would have been like.

"So do I," said Roman. "You were kidnapped from prison and used as a hostage, and you've been hospitalized as a result. We would like to prevent a repeat performance, if you don't mind."

"I do mind. I belong in prison and I'd rather be there than here, anyway."

Roman shoved himself upright and swung his good leg over the side of the bed. "What are you doing?" asked Eric with alarm. "Are you supposed to be doing that?"

"Look who's talking." Roman jerked his chin in the direction of Eric's abandoned wheelchair. "Anyway, I need to get up so I can knock your hard head into something even harder until you start talking sense."

For all the mistakes Eric's assorted parents had made throughout his childhood, none of them had ever laid a hand on him in anger, so he gave Roman's threat exactly the concern that it was worth. "Mom won't like that," he said.

"She would like the talking sense part," Roman returned, re-arranging himself on the bed. "Eric, I love you. I am proud of you for owning up to your mistakes. I'm proud of you for wanting to make amends. I'm even proud of you for throwing yourself in front of a bullet to protect Nicole despite the fact that my heart stopped for a minute when I heard what you'd done. But tossing yourself around like you're worthless needs to end."

"What does that even mean?" asked Eric. Maybe he didn't want the whole ten minutes Marlena had promised him after all.

"When Orpheus threatened you, you suggested that I let him kill you because that might help me save everyone else."

"So?"

"So, you will notice that you are not dead and neither is anyone else in this family. There was nothing to be gained from you martyring yourself in that truck. There is nothing to be gained from you marching yourself back to prison when what you need is a good surgeon. I don't know whether this is your guilt over Daniel or this has something to do with your experience with the church, but it needs to stop."

"What about my experience with the church?" He'd thought of Neema and Father Ryan when he and Roman had faced Orpheus, but he didn't think Roman knew about that. Nicole wouldn't have said anything, no matter how much she hated him now. Had Serena?

"I don't know if Orpheus said it by accident or whether it was a bigger part of what was going on in his mind, but he asked me whether I wanted to sacrifice my only son. Remember?"

"Yeah."

"I was an altar boy. You know that, right? You've seen the embarrassing pictures?" Eric had. "You know I was proud of you when you decided to become a priest. It's not an easy job, and it demands a great deal of sacrifice. Maybe you absorbed it a little too much."

"I do not think I'm Jesus Christ," said Eric, a little offended.

"Then quit trying to martyr yourself. How do you think I would have felt if I'd had to watch you die? What would that have done to your mother? How do you imagine Sami would react to losing her twin? Even Nicole, she may be angry with you, but she also loved you very much once upon a time. If you had died saving her— and I'm not saying you did the wrong thing there, because there was an actual benefit to what you did— do you really think that it wouldn't have mattered to her?"

"She told me it would have sucked if I'd died," said Eric, remembering the moment with Nicole in a jumbled, confused way. He'd been bleeding and half in shock at the time.

"Nicole always did have a way with words."

"Is the lecture over, then?"

"Sure is," said Roman, and he launched into a ridiculous story about how Sami had attempted to bribe the nurses with a role in a movie about her life if they would only let them talk to her father while they were busy inserting his IV. Marlena returned for the end of the story and listened with amusement before ordering Eric back into his wheelchair and pushing him back to his room.

He had just climbed onto his horrible excuse for a bed (Roman was wrong about Eric having a martyr complex, because if that were true Eric would have liked the bed) when he heard Brady calling out to Marlena and Marlena asking what "all this" was.

"Food," said Brady. "From the reception. No one who's stuck here has eaten anything all day and I guarantee you it's better than what's in the hospital cafeteria."

Until that moment, it hadn't occurred to Eric to be hungry. He had had too many other demands competing for his attention. Now that Brady mentioned it, though, he was starving. He mentally apologized for any thoughts he might have had earlier that day that might have implied that he sometimes considered Brady to be a bit of an idiot.

Marlena said something about needing to see Belle and Claire, who had fractured her wrist, and Brady agreed that he would catch up in a minute. Presently, he appeared in Eric's doorway. "Hey, brother," he said with forced cheerfulness. "Are they letting you eat?"

"They haven't told me not to," said Eric.

"Good enough." Brady's eyes swept over the bandages on Eric's hand and arm. " _Can_ you eat?"

Eric waved his hands as well as he could. "I don't think chopsticks would be a good idea or anything, but whatever that is, I can figure it out."

Brady looked doubtful. "Hey, Nicole?"

Eric stiffened. He hadn't realized that Nicole had accompanied Brady. She'd been uncharacteristically silent.

"Yeah?" Nicole peeked around the corner of the door.

"Take the rest of this stuff down to my sister and Marlena and then— well, text me when you find them, and—"

"Wouldn't it be easier if I stayed here with Eric?"

"That's all right with you?"

"Yeah," Nicole repeated with a horrible forced smile. "He did save my life today. I can open the stupid to-go packages for him."

"Is that all right with you?" Brady asked Eric.

"I don't need a baby-sitter, but it's fine," said Eric.

"You do need a baby-sitter," said Brady mildly before turning to Nicole. "I'll check in with you when I can."

And he left Eric and Nicole alone together for the first time in a very long time.

 **Eleven.**

Eric raised his eyebrows in surprise when Nicole shut his hospital room door behind Marlena and Brady. He knew that she felt awkward enough being alone with him without the added dose of privacy. Hell, he felt awkward enough being alone with her, and he was the one whose head was swimming with painkillers.

"Technically, there's a rule against outside food," Nicole offered by way of explanation, though Eric hadn't voiced his question aloud. "They really only enforce it if it bothers someone. It'll be harder to bother anyone with the door shut."

She kept her eyes on the various packages Brady had left for longer than strictly necessary. She fidgeted first with one and then with another, looking anywhere but directly at Eric. She had always done that when she was nervous, Eric recalled. Usually she relaxed as soon as her asked her to look him in the eye. He'd never quite figured out what just what she saw there when she did that calmed her down. Under the circumstances, though, asking her to look at him seemed like one demand too many, even if he _had_ just taken a bullet for her.

There was no way around it. Even in the midst of blood and trauma and family secrets, Eric plain old liked the fact that he'd taken a bullet for Nicole. It was old fashioned and it was macho and it was a little ridiculous and it was an absolute fact.

"Nicole?"

"Hmm?" She had busied herself re-arranging the cords that ran from the television in the corner of the ceiling to the heavy call button twisted around his IV stand and the back of his bed.

"Look at me, please," he said, making it as much a request and as little a command as possible.

She turned around slowly as if every inch she moved was causing her pain. (Perhaps it was? He'd knocked her down pretty hard, and he wasn't entirely sure what she and Brady had done in the hours after the shootout.)

"If this is too much for you, you should go. I can take care of myself, and if I can't there are nurses at the other end of the call button and a police officer outside the door." Although Eric wasn't sure whether the cop was there to protect him or keep him from leaving. He supposed the man would probably do either in a pinch.

"It's not too much for me," said Nicole, and she squared her shoulders in the way she did when she was resolved about something. Eric had always loved that about her. "Besides, I promised Brady."

Of course. It was Brady she was really looking out for, not Eric. That made sense. Nicole and Brady had logged more years and more adventures together than Nicole and Eric ever would.

Nicole returned to the food. "This is salmon. And these are some kind of mushroom turnover. Good, it will all be okay cold. And that's cake—"

"Start with the cake," Eric interrupted.

"Dessert first?" asked Nicole. "Walking on the wild side?"

The only reason that he wasn't in prison was because he needed surgery, and Nicole was still making jokes about how he was so straight-laced that he couldn't eat dessert first.

Their eyes met and the smile slid off her face, replaced by a pained look as she realized that she had slipped into an old habit that didn't fit them anymore.

"Well, it's a wedding cake," she said resolutely. "No one would screw up a wedding cake, and if group of escaped cons come in here to kill us it's exactly what we should have for a last meal."

"I don't think any escaped cons are coming in here."

"If they are, they can't have any cake. It's all for us." She carefully handed the cake to Eric so that he would be able to balance it, and moved a glass of water closer to his bed. Then she glanced around, looking for the least awkward way to be able to eat herself and also hand things to Eric as he needed them.

Eric acknowledged the only real solution before Nicole did and slid himself up against the side of the bed. "Sit here," he told her, patting the bed beside him. "It's the only way you're going to be able to reach everything."

They could pretend there was nothing weird at all about sitting in bed together eating wedding cake.

As soon as they tasted it, they weren't pretending. No one could worry about awkwardness when there was the best cake either one of them had ever eaten on the bed between them.

"This is amazing!" Nicole gushed. "No wonder Brady made sure Theresa didn't get any."

"Why would Brady— oh my God," Eric interrupted himself as he took his first mouthful. He hadn't eaten all day and he had expended a lot of energy, but he didn't think that was the whole story. The cake just happened to be better than any other cake that had ever been baked.

"Right?" asked Nicole. "Kind of sad that now you know that nothing that will happen for the rest of the week will be as good as this."

"So I'll enjoy it now," he told her, and toasted her with his fork.

"That's the spirit."

After a few minutes of savoring, Eric returned to the origin of their spoils. "Brady made sure Theresa didn't get any?" he asked.

"Brady won't tell me the details, but he put an attorney on retainer in case he sues for custody of Tate and he made sure the marriage license didn't get filed."

Eric winced. "Brady doesn't do well with breakups."

"And you and I are just great at them."

"You'll keep looking out for him? I know you always do."

Nicole nodded. "I already am. It's why I told you what I know. As far as I know, no one else knows that much. But I thought he might talk to you. If he talks to you…" She hesitated for a moment, then nodded resolutely. "If he talks to you, what I want you to do is push him to talk to Chloe about shared custody. She'll be on his side, but she has recent experience with doing it right and doing it wrong, you know? And he'll trust her. And we can trust her to do right by him."

It sounded reasonable. It sounded _too_ reasonable. Eric knew what it meant when Nicole sounded _too_ reasonable. "You wouldn't be planning Brady's next romance before the ink is dry on the marriage license he didn't use, would you?" he asked.

"Well, Brady certainly isn't very good at deciding these things for himself," Nicole muttered.

Eric swallowed his laugh. It was too damn cute when Nicole got like this, and he hadn't been able to see her this way in such a long time. "Don't push too hard," he advised. "Remember how the thing with Kristen's computer and the Titan files blew up in your face?"

Nicole sighed. "But how much trouble would it have saved everyone if it had worked?" She removed the empty containers of cake, gave Eric his glass of water, and put the rest of the food on the bed.

The salmon was just as good as the cake had been. Eric didn't realize that he'd fallen silent and started shoving the food into his mouth as quickly as he could until he noticed Nicole watching him. "Sorry for my table manners," he apologized. "I haven't had food this good in…"

"They still make you eat shepherd's pie in the prison?" she asked quietly.

"Do not remind me about that."

"Sorry. The warden always used to taunt us about it. Said it was her very favorite."

"Mine just tells us every time it comes up in the rotation that it's made with real shepherds."

"Would taste better if it was."

"It would taste better if it were one of the mud pies Sami and I used to make in the backyard when we were four years old." Nicole paled a little, and Eric wasn't sure why. She never had responded positively to any mention of Sami's name, but a story about making mud pies in the backyard seemed innocent enough. "Didn't you and Brandon and Taylor ever do that?" he asked.

"Not that I can remember. My family wasn't much like yours."

"I didn't mean to bring up bad memories."

"You didn't. I just…" Nicole busied herself once more gathering the empty containers and throwing them out. "Do you want more? We ate all the cake but there's bread and there's some kind of vegetable dish."

"No. Thank you." The food had hit his stomach all at once, and belatedly he realized that it had been hunger that had been keeping him alert against exhaustion and whatever was in the IV attached to his arm. He doubted that he could keep himself awake, let alone keep eating. He forced his eyes open. "What did I say?"

"Today, when they took you out of the prison, did you try to send some kind of voodoo twin signal to Sami?"

A shudder ran down his spine at the memory. The dark truck. His forearm on Xander's throat. "They weren't going to hand me a phone. I had to try everything."

"But how is that even a thing?" asked Nicole with an explosion of frustration. "You can't just think something and have your twin sister hear it 2000 miles away. Like, _hey, Sami, remember to pick up milk on your way home._ "

Eric laughed. "No, I can't do that. It's not thoughts. It's feelings. And not all feelings, just really intense ones."

"How does that work?"

Eric shrugged, then winced. Shrugging hurt. "We don't know. We've just always had it. I don't even remember the first time we did it, but Mom and John and Carrie, they all acknowledged it. None of them said we were making things up. John even counted on us to do it sometimes, like when we'd get lost on a ski trip or something."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"The world is full of things that don't make sense," said Eric. His words were slurring; he was half-asleep. Nicole wouldn't have gotten a better answer out him even if he'd had one to give. "You can't control everything. Some things you take on faith."

Nicole made a face at Eric's sleeping form as she tugged the sheet over his chest to keep it from twisting around him. "Why do people always imply that it's bad to want to control everything?" she asked Eric, or God, or the universe. None of them answered.

"And I know the world is full of things that don't make sense."

For example, the fact that she'd just eaten dinner with Eric Brady as if he had never killed her fiance or taken a bullet meant for her did not make sense.

"And I don't see what faith has to do with any of this."

She pulled out her phone to check for messages; nothing from Brady yet, so she figured that she was still charged with protecting Eric. That was fine. She didn't want to go home and be alone anyway.

She sank into a chair and watched Eric sleep.

"None of it makes any sense," she repeated.

 **Twelve.**

Figuring that her voice wasn't likely to wake Eric, Nicole decided to follow Abe's instruction to call Brandon. It was getting late, but not quite too late, not that she and Brandon had a long-running habit of standing on ceremony.

Just to be nice, and to honor her mother's memory, she sent a quick text to Taylor that everything was fine and that Taylor shouldn't worry if she heard anything about Salem on the news. Taylor almost immediately responded that she had been glued to the news feed and to say hello to Eric. Nicole promptly deleted the text, not caring to dwell on how as a teenager Taylor had all but followed Eric around with her tongue out and implied that Nicole didn't deserve him; after all, those thoughts inevitably led to memories of EJ carrying around Taylor's scarf like it was the holy grail and Taylor announcing that she was somehow the wounded party for having an affair with Nicole's husband. Getting along with Taylor was going to be a lifelong project.

Then she tapped the picture of her brother— a sweet photo of Brandon holding his namesake, Theo Brandon Carver, when Theo had been an infant.

Brandon answered before the phone had rung once. _"Nicky! What the hell happened today?"_

"That's a very long story."

" _I've got time,"_ said Brandon stubbornly, and so she gave him the abbreviated version.

As she was wrapping up, a nurse arrived and shooed Nicole out of the room with assurances that she could return in ten minutes.

" _Where are you?_ " asked Brandon. _"I thought you were home, but it sounds like you're in the hospital. You told me everything was fine! Abe told me everything was fine!"_

"I am in the hospital," confirmed Nicole. "But visiting! I'm not a patient! I was just sitting in Eric's room and the nurse wanted me to leave so she could check everything over and probably wake him up when he needs to be asleep."

" _You were sitting alone in Eric's room while Eric was asleep?"_ Somehow, Brandon sounded even more concerned.

"Yes," said Nicole, more defensively than she would have liked.

Brandon whistled. _"Be careful with that, Nicky."_

"He took a bullet for me today and his brother asked me to look out for him for a couple of hours. There's nothing to be careful about. What are you implying?"

" _Implying nothing. Merely pointing out that you have loved Eric Brady since the Dodgers left Brooklyn."_

"I was over Eric before Daniel died, and I'm not going to get back under Eric now that he's responsible for Daniel's death!" she hissed, hoping the police officer standing guard near Eric's door would not overhear.

" _I know it's incredibly complicated. That's why I'm warning you to be careful."_

"Warning me." Nicole rolled her eyes heavenward. "I'm not a child, Brandon. I don't need any kind of warning."

The nurse chose that moment to leave the room, and Nicole took the opportunity to hang up on Brandon and return to the chair in the corner.

She scrolled through her texts. There were at least ten from Deimos, and nearly as many from Dario. She sent both men vague answers about how she was fine but wouldn't have much time in the near future.

She stared at the texts with a mixture of boredom and revulsion until Eric stirred in his sleep and drew her attention. His wounded arm brushed against the side of the bed; a strangled, pained noise rumbled deep in his throat.

"No need to move," she whispered, moving to the side of his bed. "Don't hurt yourself."

His eyes moved wildly behind his closed eyelids and she could see a pained grimace starting to overtake his face. Whatever he was dreaming, it wasn't pleasant.

"You're okay," she tried. "We're all okay. Your mom and dad are fine, and your brother and sister, they're fine too. You got to be the big hero. You warned Roman about what was going to happen, and you warned me, too, somehow. And then you saved me again."

She wasn't getting through to him. His breathing was ragged and he was starting to sweat.

All those months in the rectory, she had wished for this very thing: to be in the position to alleviate the nightmares that left shadows under his eyes and sometimes had him crying out so that she could hear him from down the hall. The dreams had abated, somewhat, after they'd talked about the death of the priest in Africa, and had returned in full force when Kristen DiMera and Dr. Chyka had opened their bag of nasty tricks.

For all that, she'd never had a front row seat. Now that she did, she didn't like it at all.

She'd seen enough people trembling with anguish and terror for one day. Enough was enough.

She reached out and touched Eric's shoulder, high above the bandages on his hand. "Wake up. Eric? It's a dream. Not real. I mean, whatever you're dreaming about probably is real, but it's not happening now. It's over. Torturing yourself like this won't help." She gave him a final squeeze and his eyes flew open, flashing with confusion, then embarrassment, then irritation.

"What are you doing, Nicole?" he accused. She was very familiar with his post-nightmare attitude and decided not to take offense.

"I am weak, I am not perfect, and I couldn't stand watching you suffer like that so I woke you up," she declared, folding her arms across her chest and wishing she were about thirty years younger so she could get away with stomping her foot.

His lip quirked almost into a smile. "Okay."

"Okay?" she had expected an argument and was almost disappointed that she hadn't gotten one.

"Okay."

"Want to tell me what the dream was about?"

"No."

"Saying it out loud might make you feel better."

The look in his eyes told her that the subject was closed. "No."

She couldn't resist smoothing back the lock of hair that had fallen across his forehead. "Do you want to talk or do you want to go back to sleep?"

Something horrible and haunted crossed his face, and she felt something inside of her twist in sympathy. "I am not going back to sleep anytime soon. But you don't have to stay, Nicole. I know Brady asked you to eat with me, but he didn't mean you had to be here all night."

"It's not all night. You were asleep for less than two hours. Barely enough time for me to catch up on my texting. My sister says hi."

"I'm glad you're still talking to her."

"So am I. I guess." Taylor probably wasn't ever going to be Nicole's favorite subject. Leaning over the bed was awkward, but she wasn't ready to break physical contact with Eric, not while she could practically see his heart pounding out of his chest. "Can I get up on the bed again?"

He slid over in response and she crawled up beside him. The bed was high and narrow and she had known she would have to lie down close to him, but she hadn't expected him to put his arm around her shoulders and tuck her against his side.

She could have told him to stop.

She didn't.

It felt _good_ , and after the day she had had, she deserved a few minutes of feeling _good_ , Brandon's brotherly warnings be damned.

Eric's bandaged hand rested on her hip, and she took a good look at it for the first time. "That didn't happen in the church, did it?" she asked.

"No." His voice was soft but wry in her hair. "That was Xander."

"Tell me what happened?" she asked. "From the time that they took you until you got inside the church?"

"If I do, will you tell me what happened to you?"

"Deal," she agreed, and if she cuddled against him a little bit it was only to help him tell his story.

When he reached the part about almost choking Xander to death, she knew right away that that had featured heavily in the dream she'd interrupted. The whole thing had no doubt been compounded by thinking he'd seen his father murdered before his eyes.

"Sounds like taking that bullet for me was the easiest part of your day," she joked half-heartedly as his story reached its conclusion.

"It was," said Eric seriously. "Now tell me your version."

She did. She gave Eric a few more details than she had given Brandon, hoping that it would be good practice for when she spoke to the police the next day.

"I should go," she said when she'd finished. "In a minute," she amended. Somehow, in a too-narrow hospital bed lumpy with some sort of contraption that was supposed to prevent bed sores but probably created them, she felt safe and at peace. She didn't want to go home, where there weren't police officers stationed outside the door.

"If you have to," said Eric sleepily, but he didn't loosen his grip on her. She could feel how tired he was; it was a perfect match for how tired she was. For all that, he wasn't letting go.

She decided that she would stay until he was asleep again. That would definitely fulfill whatever vague promise she had made to Brady to watch over Eric, and she was a woman of her word. Well, she was sometimes a woman of her word. Well, at least, she always tried to keep her promises to Brady.

But by the time Eric was asleep, so was Nicole.

 **Thirteen**

F _or a woman who lived in a convent, Nicole had an inexhaustible supply of short, tight dresses. She was wearing another one this evening, and as usual it left Eric in no doubt that her body hadn't changed much since he'd first met her almost twenty years before._

Not that he was contemplating the state of her naked body, of course. He was, after all, a priest.

It was just hard to ignore those memories considering what Nicole chose to wear— or not wear.

And that was even without considering what Nicole chose to do, or rather who Nicole chose to do on Eric's very own desk. Maybe the prisoner release program hadn't been such a great idea after all, if Vargas' idea of appropriate post-incarceration activities included heading for third base with Eric's…. secretary, and then having the nerve to imply that Eric didn't even know what he was missing.

Eric knew what he was missing.

That was the point.

You were supposed to make a sacrifice as part of your devotion to God, and it wouldn't have been a sacrifice if no part of him wanted to grab Nicole and do things that priests didn't do. Didn't contemplate. Didn't fantasize about.

 _Do not lust in your heart after her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes. Proverbs 6:25._

"Nicole," he said as calmly as he could manage. "You know that you can't go out in that dress."

"Don't you like it?" she asked, sauntering closer to him.

He gulped. He was glad that his close were loose and not likely to show the world that one particular part of his body hadn't gotten the message about how God felt about lust. "That's irrelevant," he managed.

"Well, whether you like it or not, this dress and I are going to the new club down in the basement by the pier."

"It's not a new club. It's like every other club you've ever been to. There's nothing new for you there, Nicole."

"Maybe I don't want something new!" she snapped. "Maybe I want something that I used to have and I lost!"

As soon as she was gone, he knew that he had to follow her. He knew for a fact that she was in danger and that he was the one to protect her.

He went straight to the club. For all its newness it was just like every other club he had ever seen: pounding masses of sweaty, uncovered flesh, the stench of alcohol, flashes of drugs changing hands, groping and running and hiding and danger and…

"Nicole!"

She was dancing with three men who looked about half her age. She turned her head.

"I'm not leaving," she said. "You can't make me leave. They can offer me something that you never will."

Rage welled up inside of him. Rage at the young men and the sweat and the dress and Vargas and the noise and the smell and the lights and above all at Nicole who he couldn't have. He pulled her by the hand and half-dragged her outside and down the back alley behind the club.

"I was having fun!" Nicole snapped. "Remember fun? Remember dancing? Remember sex?"

"I remember all of those things, Nicole!"

Her lips were an inch from his. "Prove it!" she whispered.

And he covered her lips with his and lifted her up so that her back was pressed against the brick wall of a warehouse.

She kissed him back and wrapped her legs around his waist. One of his hands drifted to the too-short hem of her skirt. She wore nothing underneath it, and they both moaned with desperation when his fingers crazed her delicate skin.

He was wearing his Roman collar. He was wearing a cross. They were in public.

He was too far gone to care.

There was nothing, nothing but the pounding, pulsing, aching need for Nicole and release and Nicole and Nicole and Nicole.

Her hands were on his fly and he swatted them away to do it himself. She was too slow. He couldn't hold out, he couldn't last, and he knew that she must feel the same from the way her nails and teeth were everywhere as he entered her.

Every movement was agony. "Nic—" he tried to tell her, but her name was too much for his fevered brain.

She screamed his name.

His body tensed a final time, ready for the release it had needed since he had first seen Nicole in one of those dresses—

 _"Damn right, that's the right kind of coffee! This time of the morning, there's no wrong kind of coffee. It was quiet all night, just nurses and family going in and out, so maybe you'll get a quiet day, too. No more escaped psychos."_

Eric's eyes snapped open.

There were police officers making early morning conversation outside the door three feet away.

He was in a hospital bed.

He was not a priest, but Nicole _was_ draped over him and he _was_ one wrong thought away from having to make explanations about the state of his sheets that he really didn't want to make.

Nicole's eyes were open, too, and they were blazing with fury, shame, and something he couldn't quite name.

He tried to focus on the shame, because the fury and the mystery were hot. Then he tried thinking about dead bodies and Christ on the cross (which he knew he shouldn't use this way but under the circumstances he thought God should give him a pass) and shepherd's pie and prison breaks. It finally occurred to him to clench the fingers of his smashed hand to give his body something else on which to focus, and it was good that he did, at that moment Nicole's hand brushed across his groin as she frantically tried to escape the bed. The situation had become less dire but his body still jerked in response.

"Nicole, it's not—" he began, even though it absolutely was.

"I know how the male body works, Eric," she called over her shoulder as she rescued her purse from its spot beneath the chair in the corner and hit the door running, without so much as a goodbye.

The cop who was still guarding Eric's door was tactfully silent.

 **Fourteen.**

The world came at Nicole in flashes. She knew that she saw something and avoided slamming into it; it was long seconds later that she registered that the "something" was a police officer guarding Eric's door. Perhaps it was the police officer that had spent the whole night outside the door and knew perfectly well that Nicole had spent the whole night in Eric's bed.

Nor would Eric's bodyguard be the only one who knew. Nurses and aides would have been in and out of the room every two hours, and they would have checked on Eric, reaching over and around her, doing their jobs without disturbing her because they felt sorry for the situation in which Nicole and Eric had found themselves.

It was, after all, against the rules for visitors to spend the night in patients' rooms, let alone in patients' beds. Nicole knew that, just like with the rules about outside food, the staff would ignore any breaches of regulation that didn't bother anyone.

She knew that because Daniel had told her.

Daniel who was dead because of Eric.

Daniel who should have been her husband by now.

What had she done?

Wild-eyed, Nicole ran past the elevators. She wasn't going to risk getting into one of them with a stranger who had been in the room last night, or a colleague of Daniel's who had heard the gossip making the rounds, or, worst of all, one of Daniel's friends.

She couldn't justify her decision to spend the night with Daniel's killer— not to herself, and not to anyone else. She couldn't imagine confessing that, worse than merely falling asleep in Eric's arms, she had slept more contentedly than she had in at least a year.

And she certainly wasn't ever going to admit, even to herself, that when she'd woken up in distressed humiliation, a tiny part of her had jolted with interest when she'd accidentally groped Eric and registered that he'd woken up with one hell of an erection.

She hadn't lied when she'd told Eric that she knew full well how the male body worked. Morning wood wasn't the same as sexual arousal. Maybe he'd just had to pee after all the fluids the doctors had pumped into him. Maybe he'd been dreaming about something completely innocuous. Even if he _had_ been dreaming about sex, she could hardly blame him for that. She had a long, long list of things for which she blamed Eric Roman Brady. That list didn't include weird things his brain told his body to do when he was unconscious.

The only one Nicole had to blame was Nicole. Nicole had climbed into bed with the man who had killed her fiancé, and Nicole hadn't been able to summon the willpower to leave.

It had been with Daniel that Nicole had well and truly changed into a mostly honest person. Rather than wait for the secret of what she and Eric had done in the furnace crawl space to come out in the worst possible way after months of fear and blackmail, she'd told Daniel the truth. And Daniel had still wanted to marry her. Daniel hadn't punished her for a year the way Eric had when he'd learned the truth about the documents that incriminated Kristen and Chyka. Daniel had said he understood that people did strange things when they believed that they were about to die.

 _Eric's hands had been bandaged then, too. He burned them trying first to block off the grate and then to pry it open. He'd collapsed, naked, into her arms and she'd stroked his hair and been sure that God or the universe or some great force had meant for them to be together in death since that hadn't been possible in life…_

She ran down the stairs. The stairs were one more thing that she wouldn't have known if it hadn't been for Daniel; they were hidden behind an unmarked door, open to the public but not advertised since the expectation was that patients would have some mobility issues and were better off with the big, brightly lit elevators.

At long last, she reached the first floor and slammed open the door to the lobby. It was early enough that the information desk should be abandoned; standard out-patient appointments wouldn't start for several hours.

Her peripheral vision saw the movement of only one person as she made for the door and outside and anywhere but the hospital where Daniel had worked and saved lives and died.

"Nicole!"

The severe summons stopped her dead in her tracks. It was the worst possible person. She couldn't bring herself to curse her rotten luck. She deserved this.

"M— Maggie," she stammered.

Maggie was Daniel's mother. Maggie had known almost everyone who worked at the hospital even before Daniel had come into her life because for a long time Maggie had been a Horton and for a long time the Hortons had run the place. Maggie had been at the wedding and knew everyone else who had been there.

There was no way that Maggie didn't already know where Nicole had spent the night.

Maggie had never thought that Nicole was good enough for Daniel, and had only been convinced by Daniel's steadfast devotion to Nicole— and by Daniel's death.

"Nice morning, isn't it?" asked Maggie with an edgy false cheer.

"It's really not," said Nicole. "Did they catch Clyde yet?"

"Not that I've heard. I didn't have a lot of time to catch up on the news, though, I was so worried about all of the people who were hurt yesterday. What about _you_ , Nicole? Was there anyone in particular who _you_ were worried about?"

"I didn't want anyone to be hurt," said Nicole, even though she knew that she was caught. "It seems like everyone is going to be fine. That's— that's a blessing, isn't it?"

"A blessing," Maggie repeated. "Sounds like something a former priest might say. How is Eric, Nicole? Or didn't you talk to him last night? Were you too busy doing other things with the man who killed your fiancé?"

"We didn't do anything!" Tears spilled down her cheeks. "We talked, that's all, we talked and we ate dinner and we fell asleep. He'd just saved my life and I thought I owed it to him to make sure that he was all right."

"This is a very fine hospital," said Maggie coolly. "Even though it has lost the best physician it has seen in the past fifty years, there are still many professionals who were quite capable of taking care of Eric Brady, don't you think? Or did Eric require a very special kind of care that only a woman of your very particular talents could provide?"

"He saved my life," Nicole repeated lamely. She knew it didn't convince Maggie. It didn't convince Nicole herself.

Maggie pursed her lips and became very quiet. Nicole almost wished that she would yell. "You never deserved Daniel. He told me over and over that you had changed, and that you made him happy, and I so very much wanted that to be true. I even let myself believe it. But you are the same woman that you always were. A liar, a cheater, a… a vindictive little murdering trollop, as Victor likes to call you. I suppose if there's a silver lining to Daniel's death, it's that he isn't here to see this and have his heart broken. If you were cheating on him the whole time that you were together—"

"I wasn't!"

"—He'll never have to know."

"Daniel would have understood," said Nicole weakly. He'd understood about the furnace crawl space.

Maggie glared imperiously at the engagement ring that still rested on Nicole's left hand. "For heaven's sake, have a little grace and take that off." Maggie narrowed her eyes. "Grace. That was the name of the little girl you stole who died, wasn't it?"

"I didn't steal her," whispered Nicole as the memory of the infant-sized coffin made her weak on her feet.

"That's right, it was Sydney you stole. So hard to keep track. Speaking of children to whom you have no right, I hope you understand that Parker does not need the woman who is sleeping with his father's killer in his life. I'll speak to Chloe, but perhaps you'll decided to do the right thing without any help?"

There was a long pause.

Then Maggie laughed. "What am I thinking? People don't change. You haven't changed. Get on with whatever you were doing, Nicole."

 **Fifteen.**

When Marlena appeared in Eric's hospital room fifteen minutes after Nicole's exit, he half-expected a scolding for having spent the night with Nicole in his bed. He was intimately familiar with the hospital's rumor mill and assumed that his unauthorized sleeping arrangements were common knowledge. Marlena probably didn't need to rely on the rumor mill, though, because she'd probably come to check on him and seen Nicole curled into his side with her own eyes. She hadn't woken Nicole and told her to get out, though, and Eric appreciated that.

"You didn't eat breakfast, did you?" asked Marlena as soon as she'd greeted him. "Nothing since last night when your brother brought you dinner?"

He hadn't expected that. "No."

Marlena lit up with happiness, suddenly looking as if she hadn't spent the previous day at the mercy of a man who had stolen five years of her life and the previous night checking on injured children and grandchildren. "Good. One of the operating rooms is unexpectedly free, and the best general surgeon in this hospital also happens to have had a cancellation. It's a perfect storm. We'll get your arm cleaned up this morning instead of next week."

Having the surgery completed almost before he'd had time to worry about it was an appealing prospect. No one wanted to spend longer in the hospital than necessary. Nonetheless, Eric evaluated his mother's unmitigated delight with suspicion. "Did you pull strings to make this happen?" he asked. "Is this something that would have happened to someone whose mother isn't a world-renowned psychiatrist on staff at this hospital?"

"World-renowned is pushing it," said Marlena, caressing Eric's cheek fondly. "But I appreciate the flattery, so you can continue to say that in the future."

Eric admired her ability to be playful under the circumstances, but he wasn't in the mood to have his question dodged. "Mom."

"No, Eric, I did not call in any favors or pull any strings. What I did was advocate for you. Any patient in any hospital needs an advocate. I wish it wasn't so, I genuinely wish it wasn't, but sometimes you have to push to get the best treatment and there is nothing unethical about that."

"How soon?"

"Soon," said Marlena, and she nodded toward the door. Eric noticed a team of scrubs-clad men and women diligently reviewing something on a computer monitor.

"Okay," he agreed, as if his agreement would have mattered. "Thank you. For advocating."

"I love you," she answered, and she kissed him on his forehead before she left.

* * *

When Eric came to after the surgery, he was back in his room and his mother was back at his side. Belle was there, too, and she and Marlena were talking quietly.

"…It's basically perfect," Belle was saying. "Not bad enough that he's in a lot of pain or has to be dependent on anyone else for more than a minute here and there, but not something he can possibly deal with in a prison cell. They won't want him in the infirmary at the prison because it's less secure and he doesn't really need to be there. We won't even have to ask. Statesville will ask."

"Statesville's going to ask _what_?" Eric wanted to know.

"For you to stay with us for a little while before you go back," said Belle cheerfully. "Which buys us time to talk about the rest of your sentence being changed so that you can't be kidnapped and used as a human shield again. And before you argue, tell me how you're going to change the bandage on your right hand when you can't move your left arm and you don't have anyone to help you."

Somehow, Eric had forgotten how insufferable Belle was when she was right. He didn't dignify her victory with a response. "How's Claire?" he asked instead. He knew that his niece had been injured the day before.

Belle pouted. "Mad at me, of course. I fractured her wrist and gave her a black eye when I pushed her out of the way of a hail of bullets, and apparently I did this as part of a plot to ruin her singing career."

Since Belle had been so diligent about handling Eric's well-deserved legal issues when she should have been at home with her husband and their daughter, Eric refrained from pointing out that Claire sounded like the clone of a teenage Belle. Apparently his thoughts showed on his face, or else Belle had heard the observation before, because she answered him anyway. "Don't say it," she warned before breaking off in a yawn.

"Go home and rest," he said. "Both of you."

"We will in a few minutes," Marlena promised. "John is waiting outside."

"Can he come in?" asked Eric, an opportunity slowly resolving itself in his mind.

"Of course," said Marlena, and Belle opened the door and gestured to her father.

It wasn't just John who came in, but Brady, too. _"Did you talk to her?"_ Belle murmured, and Eric couldn't hear what Brady said but could tell by Belle's body language that the answer hadn't satisfied her.

"Hey, kid," said John. "How're you doing?"

"Good," said Eric.

John evaluated him quietly. "I think you are," said John. "It's a strange thing to say, but you look better than you did the last time I talked to you."

The last time Eric had spoken to John, Eric had just made the more-than-slightly questionable decision to go to his sentencing, and then to prison, unshowered and with a hangover. He hadn't been able to hear much over the din of his own fear and guilt, but he did remember talking to John. "I remember thanking you," said Eric. "For taking care of my mother. I know you don't really need to be thanked for that and that you couldn't stop doing it if you wanted to."

"Which I do not."

Eric smiled. "So I wanted to tell you to take your wife and your children home to take care of themselves instead of hovering around here worrying about me. I told them myself, but they don't listen to me."

John's laughter drowned out whatever mock-outraged commentary Eric had provoked from Marlena and Belle. "Do you think they listen to _me_ , kid?"

"Do you think I should call security?" asked Eric.

John's eyes sparkled tiredly. "We should consider that, yes. It may be the only way."

Marlena playfully swatted John's arm and kissed Eric goodbye. "We're going. We will be back tomorrow unless you call us. You _will_ call us if you need anything or want anything," she commanded severely.

"Yes, Mom," Eric agreed, and Marlena, John, and Belle left. Brady stayed behind. "You, too," Eric directed. "You've had a really bad couple of days." Eric was reasonably sure that Brady was still wearing the same shirt he'd worn to his wedding, although he had discarded his tie and put on a pair of jeans somewhere along the line.

"Tell me about it," said Brady. He braced his hands on the rail of Eric's bed and looked Eric squarely in the face. "I'll go in a minute. Just as soon as you tell me what happened with you and Nicole last night."

Eric groaned and leaned back against his pillows. He'd almost forgotten about the mess with Nicole in the middle of mothers and sisters and hospital policy and legal loopholes. And surgery. He'd just had surgery. Brady couldn't make him talk about anything when he'd just had surgery. That was some kind of rule, Eric was sure of it.

"I just want to know why she ran out of here in tears this morning and has her phone turned off."

Eric hesitated, not quite sure what to say.

"Let me make this a little easier. I came back to check on you a few hours after I left and you were both asleep. You're both consenting adults and she didn't get where she was by accident, so I left you there."

"Okay. So?"

"Did you do more than sleep?"

"In a hospital bed?" Eric demanded.

Brady favored Eric with a look that left Eric knowing more than he'd ever needed to know about his brother's sexual conquests.

Eric made a face. "No."

"I can always ask Nicole what happened instead of asking you," suggested Brady mildly.

That would be worse for everyone concerned. "I was asleep, all right?" Eric didn't like how defensive he sounded, especially since Brady had no doubt heard a thousand stories like this in high school locker rooms. "I was dreaming, she was lying on top of me, and even though this is something that's supposed happen a lot less when you're not fourteen years old anymore—"

That was as much as Brady needed. He exploded with laughter and let go of the bed, dropping to the floor and burying his face in his hands.

Eric glared at him.

"Sorry," said Brady, not sounding sorry at all. "I thought it was something bad that was gonna do serious damage to one of you."

Eric wasn't really angry— after the way the last 36 hours had gone, Brady probably needed to laugh hysterically at something— but he turned away just for form's sake. "Out of all of my brothers, you are my absolute least favorite," he told Brady.

Brady stood up and dragged one of the chairs closer to the bed, then leaned against the arm rather than sitting in it. He wiped a stray tear off of his cheek, and there was something about the gesture that would have made Eric forgive Brady on the spot if he'd ever been mad to begin with.

"Fair is fair," said Brady. "Want to know how my day went?"

Eric nodded.

"Xander broke out of prison partially because he was very angry with Theresa."

"She was the one who put him in prison after he tried to rape her," Eric remembered.

"She was the one who put him in prison by pretending that he tried to rape her," Brady corrected.

Eric felt his eyes widen of their own volition. He'd known that Theresa had had a tenuous relationship with the truth over the years, but somehow he hadn't expected her to lie about something like rape. "Did you know?" he asked Brady.

Brady shook his head. "That's the thing. If she'd told me, I would have gone along with it. I know you don't like that and you don't agree with it, but if that had been what it took to keep you and Nicole safe after what Xander tried to do to you, I would have supported it. But she didn't tell me. And she wasn't trying to protect you. She just wanted me to see her as vulnerable so I'd let her worm her way back into my life after she tried to keep me hooked on drugs, ran Melanie out of Salem by threatening to keep Tate away from me, and, oh yeah, you may remember she almost killed my father."

"So you decided not to go through with the wedding?"

"You would think that I'd get to decide that, right? No. Orpheus, he was the ringleader of this operation. Orpheus was after my father. Your parents. Our family. Theresa said it was too much crazy for her to marry into. _She_ thinks _we're_ too dangerous. Last I checked I never hit Shane over the head and needed Eve to sacrifice a piece of her soul to save my ass. Theresa wanted to cancel the wedding and take Tate back to California with her parents."

"So what did you do?"

"Called a custody lawyer and got an injunction."

"Good," said Eric. "I mean, not good. Custody battles aren't good. But good that you're on top of things." He remembered what Nicole had said the night before and decided that she had probably been right. "You should talk to Chloe."

"Chloe?"

"She'll be on your side, but she's also done this the easy way and the hard way."

"I guess she has."

"I wish I could be here with you. I wish I could help."

Somehow, that made Brady look even sadder. "I miss you."

"I miss you, too."

Brady sighed heavily and leaned his head against the rail of his bed, looking completely exhausted. Eric fought the urge to caress his brother's head, his shoulder, anything to offer sympathy and comfort. The last time they'd had a real conversation, it had been in this very hospital. Daniel had just died; Brady had barely survived. Brady hadn't been cruel, but he'd certainly been firm in his convictions that he and Eric were on some sort of a twisted hiatus. The thing that had driven it home, even more than the words, had been the way Brady had carefully avoided touching Eric.

Brady was tactile almost to a fault. Eric had lost count of the number of times he'd wondered why Brady was hugging him or slapping him on the back or just plain grabbing at him. He'd understood why Brady had done it as a child looking up to his teenage older stepbrother, but Brady had never outgrown it. On that day, though, Brady's physical revulsion had shown through his tolerance. And so Eric kept the hand that he was currently permitted to move to himself.

"I didn't think we were going to get into this today," said Brady without lifting his head. "But hey, nothing like having three assholes crash your wedding and threaten to murder your family to remind you of what's important. Did you hear that Orpheus tried to make my dad choose between murdering Paul and murdering me?"

"Nicole seemed to think John should have just shot Paul."

Brady laughed humorlessly. "She's loyal. We have to give her that."

"He said I was dead, too?"

"Implied it. I don't know how to explain it, but I was pretty sure you weren't from the way he phrased it. Or maybe I was just hoping… you know I love you, right? You know I forgive you? You know I'm so glad you got yourself together and you're you again?"

"I know that," agreed Eric, and this time he did put his hand on Brady's shoulder. "And because I love you, I'm telling you the same thing I told your father and my mother and our sister."

Brady stood up shakily, giving Eric's arm a squeeze as he guided it back to the bed. "I'm going." His forced smile somehow hit his eyes. "Behave yourself for the pretty nurses, will you?"

Eric refrained from replying with an obscene gesture that was popular in his cell block, and presumably all cell blocks.

Finally alone, he was free at last to wonder what was going on in Nicole's beautiful head.

 **Sixteen.**

Some people believed that you weren't supposed to drink early in the morning, but Nicole wasn't one of them. If God didn't want people to drink with breakfast, God wouldn't have invented mimosas and screwdrivers and Bloody Marys.

She dragged herself to a diner where her mother had waitressed for a number of years. It was close enough to the hospital to allow her to walk, but far enough away that she didn't expect anyone named Brady or Kiriakis to show up. It was also far enough away that she had time to dry her eyes and lift her chin before she arrived.

After Nicole's first screwdriver, she was focused enough to turn off her phone so that no one could summon her to the police station to give a statement or remind her that she had never been good enough for Daniel.

After Nicole's second screwdriver, she was able to look at her engagement ring for a few seconds at a time without feeling like the world was about to collapse around her.

After Nicole's third screwdriver, a waitress dropped a platter heavy with bacon and eggs and toast and potatoes in front of her.

"I didn't order this."

"On the house," the waitress said. Then she added, under her breath, "You look very much like your mother, Nicole. We miss her around here."

The promise of a fourth screwdriver helped Nicole hold the tears back. "I miss her, too. I wish I could talk to her now."

"Is everything all right?"

The question was carefully open-ended, giving Nicole the chance to claim that everything was great even though she was drinking alone before the clerks and teachers and businessmen around her even began their work for the day. And Nicole took the opportunity. "Yes," she said. "Everything is fine. Thank you for the food."

"You should try to eat some of it," the waitress pushed.

"I will," Nicole lied. She didn't have the energy to scream that she wasn't going to eat food she hadn't ordered because some woman she didn't remember seeing before had invoked her mother's name.

What would Fay have said, anyway, if Nicole had been able to talk to her? If Fay had known anything about relationships, she would have gotten herself and her children the hell away from Paul Mendez.

Nicole left after the fourth screwdriver. She took a cab home because, unlike certain other people in her life, she understood that it wasn't all right to drive immediately after drowning her sorrows in alcohol.

She changed out of the clothes she'd slept in and went in search of a dirty martini.

Before she found one, though, she was recognized and all but dragged into the police station to give a statement about the previous day's events.

She was lamentably almost sober when the statement had been given and she ran into Chloe, who had presumably been ordered to the police station for the same purpose.

"I've been trying to call you," said Chloe.

"My phone is off."

"Obviously. Why?"

"Did Maggie talk to you about Parker?" Nicole blurted out.

"She talks to me about Parker all the time. So?"

"Did she talk to you about making sure I don't see him anymore?"

"No. Why would she do that?"

Nicole wasn't going to cry. She just wasn't. "Because I… Because Eric. Because she thinks I did things with Eric that I didn't do, but even though this time I'm innocent I won't always be, you know? Sooner or later I'll do something that betrays Daniel's memory no matter how hard I try not to."

Chloe's apparent confusion would have been funny if the situation hadn't been so serious. She guided Nicole toward the park, and the two of them sat on a bench together.

"Parker is going to keep seeing you because Parker needs to hear about his father from as many people as possible," said Chloe after a moment. "Parker is going to keep seeing you because Parker likes you. Parker is going to keep seeing you because I like you. Parker is going to keep seeing you because it sucks for a kid to be ripped away from an adult who loves him because the adults' relationships changed. If Maggie doesn't understand that, Maggie can learn how. But I think Maggie does understand that. She knows what it's like to have to say goodbye to a child. She was a foster parent, didn't you know that?, and she lost a foster child because she was drinking."

"I heard that story, but I don't think she's likely to apply that to me. She said people don't change."

"People say things when they're stressed out or grieving. Is that really what you're upset about? Maggie accusing you of wanting to move on from Daniel with the man who accidentally killed him? Because you know she can't stop you from seeing Parker."

Nicole twisted the ring around her finger. "I used to have this stupid fantasy in my head," she admitted. "Lots of stupid fantasies. There are the obvious ones where there's been some kind of mistake and Daniel turns out to be all right. He went to Tahiti for a conference and he forgot to tell me. The body was misidentified and he's been getting treatment all this time. But then there are the more realistic ones where he's really dead, but everyone who loved him really wants me to move on and be happy, and I do."

"I think that's very realistic," Chloe agreed. Nicole shot her a dubious look. "So Maggie's in a mood and she took it out on you. That's one person. I loved Daniel. I am raising Daniel's child. I think that you should move on as soon as you want, in whatever way you want."

"What if I told you Maggie was right and Eric and I made love all over that hospital last night?"

Chloe's eyes widened. _"Did you?"_ she asked, not even pretending not to be fascinated.

"No!"

"If you did, that would be your business," Chloe decided, but Nicole thought she looked almost disappointed.

"Well, I'm not going to. It's not even really a choice. He's going back to prison."

"Not forever."

"Four and half more years."

"They'll let him out before that for contrition and good behavior."

"Contrition." Nicole rolled the word around on her tongue.

Chloe shrugged. "Or whatever they call it legally."

"Do you forgive him? Because he's _contrite_?"

"Yes," said Chloe, as if she hadn't even had to think about it very much. "He didn't do it on purpose, it was very out of character, and he's going to punish himself more than I ever could."

"You're going to tell Parker that you forgive the man who killed his father?"

"Yes. I'm going to tell Parker that his father and I disagreed on a lot, but that we agreed that forgiveness is a wonderful thing. I would rather spend my life raising and loving Parker than trying to hurt a good man who made a bad decision. You know what happens when you take refusal to forgive as far as you can? We saw that the other day. You get Orpheus. Roman Brady shot Orpheus' wife by accident. It was a tragedy. But instead of telling his children that they still had him and that they would all do the best they could, Orpheus decided to get back at Roman by hurting the people he loved. By taking Marlena away from her own children for five years so Sami and Eric could suffer too. Orpheus' children didn't appreciate that. They got to the point where they washed their hands of him because they knew his hatred was more important to him than they were."

"There's a lot of room between refusing to forgive someone for taking a life that was precious to you and retaliating against everyone around them."

"I still like forgiveness better," said Chloe stubbornly. "One time I forgave this woman who put flesh-eating bacteria on my face hoping that would make me too ugly for my boyfriend to want me anymore. It made my life better. I might not even have Parker if I'd never forgiven her."

"What does that have to do with Parker?" asked Nicole, the old guilt welling up in her chest. _Flesh-eating bacteria._ She'd put flesh-eating bacteria on a teenage girl's face, and she'd done it on purpose.

"I wasn't sure I wanted to have kids. They kind of scared me. My adoptive parents were older and their friends were older and I was never around kids younger than I was until I went into foster care and I was supposed to take care of these kids who were… who had had problems no kid deserves to have and weren't exactly great at doing what this fifteen-year-old they'd never met told them to do. I love my little sister, but I wasn't really around Joy that much because my singing career started taking off when she was still a baby. When I came back to Salem and I started to get involved with Lucas, I didn't want to take another step with him because of Allie. You were the one who told me I could do it. You said I could be a stepmother and it would be okay. You were so certain of it that I believed you. And you know what? Allie cried and whined and got me in trouble, and she was the best part of that marriage. My name was the first word Allie ever said. Sami and Lucas will tell you it wasn't, but it was. The worst part of the divorce was losing her. Neither one of her parents had any interest in letting her keep seeing me, and I doubt she remembers me at this point. But she changed my life. I wanted Parker. I knew I could handle Parker. And I know it wouldn't be a threat to me if I let Parker stay in your life. Or in Jennifer's life, for that matter."

"Jennifer never had any problem forgiving Eric, either. I mean, she was high as a kite for a lot of it so maybe that helps, but she was with Daniel longer than I was and she… She actually was in bed with him the morning he went to prison, if I heard that story right."

"That's what I heard, too. But you know what, Jennifer's escapades aren't important right now. What's important is whether you want to tell Eric that you forgive him before he goes back to prison."

"I sort of already did," said Nicole. "It was hard to do anything else when he was lying on top of me bleeding because he'd just saved my life."

"There's real forgiveness and there's heat of the moment forgiveness," Chloe decreed.

"This was both." She twisted her ring around her finger one more time. "You really think Daniel would be all right with it?"

"Daniel loved Eric, too, you know," said Chloe. "If Eric had gotten one of us killed, Daniel would have been following him around telling him to stop drinking."

"Jennifer said the exact same thing."

"I'm not sure I'm comfortable agreeing with Jennifer this much."

Nicole almost laughed. "Believe me, I get that. When I agree with Jennifer, I like to rethink my position. Even though we're kind of friends sometimes."

"Even though she forgave you once for pretending that she killed your son."

Nicole ignored the reminder, which she hadn't needed. "If I forgive Eric, it's like admitting that I'm leaving Daniel behind. It's like taking off the ring. It's like admitting it could never happen again."

Chloe was silent.

Nicole took off the ring.

That night Nicole locked Daniel's engagement ring in the back of a dresser drawer beside the engagement ring Eric had once given her.

She didn't care for the irony.

Life sucked sometimes.

 **Seventeen.**

It was the same and it was different.

Eric was being discharged from the hospital, police were everywhere, and his parents were hovering. That was the same.

No one tried to put him in handcuffs and Nicole didn't appear to scream in his face that she wanted him to rot in hell for all eternity. That was different.

When they stepped outside, he was confused for an instant by the crisp autumn air. It had been winter, and autumn came before winter. Then he remembered that he'd seen the end of winter and the beginning of spring from the bottom of a bottle and that spring and summer were entirely different when filtered through a prison yard.

He swallowed a rush of fear. He didn't want to go back.

He wanted to pay for what he'd done, of course. He needed to pay to depths of his soul. He had no intention of running or complaining. He certainly had no intention of letting Belle push for a lighter sentence beyond what she had to do to give their parents peace of mind that he would be safe from the shadows of their family's past.

But the part of him that was selfish and irresponsible didn't want to go back.

John and Marlena's townhouse, too, was the same and different.

It wasn't the house he and Carrie and Sami had grown up in next door to the Horton Center. It wasn't even the penthouse he had visited as a teenager when Belle and Brady had been young. It wasn't home, and had never been home, but it was full of things he recognized.

When he went upstairs to take a shower—and no, he had not wanted to be sponge-bathed by the pretty nurses, no matter what Brady claimed—the sight of a million bottles of fruity and flowery shower gels and shampoos felt familiar. This time they belonged to Claire and Belle instead of Sami and Carrie, and this time he used them because he didn't have anything of his own.

This time, he would get on the prison transport smelling like a teenage girl instead of a brewery. He wasn't sure whether that would be a problem, but for the moment he was too invested in feeling clean and enjoying the hot water to care.

All the hot water he wanted, and total privacy to boot.

The part of him that was selfish and irresponsible _really_ didn't want to go back.

He couldn't decide whether to remind himself that he had chosen to give up this sort of thing more than once in his life. Seminaries weren't big on shower heads with fifteen massage settings, and as for the quality of life in the Congo, well, the sunrises made up for a lot.

It was all noise, anyway, he decided. It didn't matter how well he could tolerate particular conditions at Statesville. He had a debt to pay to society, and he was going back. He didn't get to choose where or how long or how much it hurt.

There might be noise in his mind, but there was none in the townhouse that night, and the quiet kept him awake. Even on the calmest night in the calmest cell block in Statesville, there was no quiet. The smallest noise echoed over and over off the hard surfaces.

Eric glanced around the guest room to which he had been assigned. One of the framed pictures on the wall was of Eric and Sami as toddlers. Sami was reaching toward the camera as if to protect Eric— _to protect you from something I did, probably,_ Sami claimed as an adult.

After everything that Sami and Eric had put their mother and John through, Eric was half-surprised that that particular photograph was even on display. From an artistic perspective, the composition was really very good. The lighting was correct and both of the subjects were in focus and looking at the camera. Their personalities, too, had been captured quite well. Sami was taking action without thinking at all, while Eric was hanging back and probably thinking too much.

Now the vibrant little girl was on the run with a bank account full of stolen money and the cautious little boy was on his way back to prison because the one time when caution would have mattered, he hadn't bothered with it. They were killers, both of them, but Sami had killed to protect and Eric had killed because he was stupid and reckless.

Eric turned to stare at the opposite wall instead. On this wall was a framed, lovingly preserved crayon family portrait drawn by either Belle or Brady. No matter how hard Eric looked, he couldn't tell which. Whoever the artist had been, though, he or she had drawn Eric with a smile on his face and a camera strapped over his shoulder.

It was the perfect depiction of Eric right around the time he'd met Nicole. Back then, he'd thought life had been a bit too complicated and might have wished himself back to the days when his twin sister had tried to protect him from camera flashes instead of romantic entanglements. Now, he was tempted to wish himself back to a time when he could have looked into Nicole's eyes and assured her that there would never be anyone else for either of them and she really didn't need to worry about Lucas' money or anything Misty Circle had been forced to do.

He didn't want to look at that wall anymore, either.

Since the rest of the inhabitants of the townhouse hadn't spent two days in the hospital being encouraged to sleep as much as possible, he left the room as quietly as he could and made his way downstairs without turning on a light.

He picked up a book that lay discarded on the living room couch and began to skim through it, not much caring what he was reading. There was a man; there was a woman. He had his world; she had hers. Their worlds weren't any too compatible, and when she chose to return home rather than stay with him, she regretted it for the rest of her life. The book was careful to note, though, that the people who chose to stay regretted it for the rest of their lives, too.

He closed his eyes in exasperation and considered whether he might be able to sleep if he went back upstairs.

There was a quiet noise behind him and he bolted to his feet, ready to defend himself.

"Sorry," said Claire, who hadn't moved a muscle when he'd jumped like he might attack her. "I didn't mean to startle you. Here." She held out a glass of what looked like chocolate milk.

"I'm surprised your grandmother lets you keep this around," said Eric. Marlena couldn't cook, but everything in her refrigerator was healthy.

"I keep it way in the back behind the emergency water and she pretends not to notice," explained Claire. "I mean, she should be glad it's not beer I'm trying to sneak in here, right?" It was almost comical to watch Claire realize what she'd said, and to whom. "I mean— I didn't mean—"

Eric took pity on her. "You're right. As vices go, chocolate milk is a pretty mild one." He took a drink and sat back down on the couch. Claire sat beside him.

"Did you like the book?" Claire pointed to the novel, which had tumbled to the floor. Eric retrieved it and put it back on the table.

"Not really," he admitted. "But I'm not exactly the target audience."

"I _am_ the target audience and I hated it," said Claire. "I threw it across the room when I finished it. What's the moral supposed to be? That you'll be miserable whatever you choose?"

Eric was tempted to tell her that, at least, there was some realism to that moral. Instead, he asked whether the woman should have stayed.

"Of course," said Claire with real authority. "She loved him."

"I'm sure you're sick of hearing this, but you are so much like your mother."

"Thank you." She flipped her hair over her shoulder, and that made her look even more like Belle. "I do hear that a lot." She fixed her wide blue eyes on his. "Most people say I remind them of her, but then there are a few people who say I remind them of you."

Eric almost choked on the milk. "I really hope not."

"Why not?"

"Because I would rather you not grow up to be a convicted felon."

"It adds credibility in the music industry," said Claire blithely.

"No, it doesn't. And don't joke about that. What are you doing up, anyway?"

She held up her wrist, which was wrapped in a brace. "It hurt and you're supposed to take the pills with liquid."

"Oh." He should have asked about that in the first place. "Are you all right? If the pain is really bad we can—"

She waved him off. "It's annoying, that's all."

Claire didn't look to be in pain, so Eric decided to take her word for it and ask the question that was burning in his mind. "Do people tell you why you remind them of me?"

"Not really," said Claire. "It's just something they say sometimes. I thought it might be because I wanted to sing and not do a boring regular job, and photographer, that's more interesting than being a cop or a lawyer or some kind of business mogul, right? Why did you stop being a photographer to be a priest?"

Now there was a story that Eric wasn't going to tell a teenage girl in the middle of the night, or ever. Claire and Neema were about the same age, and when shots had rung out in the church Belle had thrown herself over her daughter without a second thought. Belle had done the right thing.

Claire didn't seem to notice that Eric hadn't answered her question or that his mind had wandered.

"Someone did tell me something," Claire continued. "I don't remember who said it. All of a sudden I'm in this town where everyone knows who I am and who my parents are even though I don't know half of them, you know? They said that you had really weird stuff happen to you but you were always reaching for people who were less lucky than you were. That you would take runaways out to lunch and then convince them to go home. That you… the way you saw Nicole working as a waitress and you knew she could be more."

"Anyone could have seen that," said Eric.

"Most people don't even look at waitresses," said Claire. She grabbed the empty glasses and took them back into the kitchen. "That's who told me. A waitress." She shrugged, the mystery having been solved. "Are you coming upstairs now?"

 _ **Eighteen.**_

The first day after Nicole took off Daniel's ring was the day the police finally captured the third fugitive, Clyde Weston. Kate was reportedly unharmed, and while Nicole was glad of it, she was also meanly aware that Kate had brought this on herself. Kate, who had married a man who had beaten her and abused their children, had tracked down a man who had beaten and abused his children with the express intention of hurting one of those children.

As Chloe had delighted in reminding Nicole, there were a lot of things that Nicole had done in her life. Flesh-eating bacteria, sure; baby-switching, everyone knew that; marrying for money, she somehow hadn't learned was a bad idea until she'd done it more than once. But handing a young woman over to the "father" who had attacked her was over the line. At her worst, it wouldn't have occurred to Nicole to do it.

Kate had gotten a little taste of karma.

But if karma existed, where had Daniel's karma been?

Daniel hadn't deserved to die.

Nicole hadn't deserved to lose Daniel.

Nicole had done everything right with Daniel.

"Life sucks, Nicole," she reminded herself aloud. "You already knew that."

Since she couldn't let Xander and his friends keep her from going about her business for another day, she checked in at work. She exchanged a few texts with both Brandon and Taylor and didn't get particularly annoyed with either of them. She called Chloe and reminded her to check on Brady. She had lunch with Abe and Theo and found herself genuinely touched by Abe's pride in Theo's success in navigating college so far.

Then she wondered why the hell Eric hadn't called her before remembering that he didn't have a phone and probably hadn't memorized her number. (His reason better not have been that she had left. He was the one who ought to be chasing her around, not vice versa. Not even if he had been shot for her. It had barely been more than a flesh wound. He was fine.)

Then she wondered why Abe hadn't spontaneously given her an update on Eric's condition at lunch. Abe had to have known, as close as he was to Roman and Marlena. She certainly wasn't going to ask.

Instead, she went home. She didn't open the drawer and look at the ring, but she felt better knowing that she was close to it.

* * *

The second day after she took off the ring, Nicole decided to stop waiting for other people to read her mind and texted Brady to ask how Eric was.

 _Fine. Released yesterday. At Dad and Marlena's townhouse._

Nicole determined that that was close enough to an invitation.

She heard raised voices before she even knocked on the front door of the townhouse. Naturally, she stopped to listen. If Marlena lost her temper— especially if Marlena lost her temper because her precious Eric was being infuriating in the way her precious Eric tended to be— Nicole didn't want to interrupt. She considered taking out her phone to record the whole conversation.

She needed to get back into reporting. Whoever had decided that being nosy should be a profession had been a very, very wise person.

" _I don't know what you're so upset about,"_ Eric was saying. He wasn't shouting, but his voice carried; she suspected that in the seminary he'd been taught to project in a certain way and now he did it without thinking. _"I probably would have enjoyed it, and it's not going to happen, anyway."_

" _It's not going to happen because your sister didn't allow it to happen,"_ snapped Marlena. _"You should thank Belle."_

" _Thank you, Belle,"_ said Eric, and if the timing was mocking, the tone was not.

" _Solitary confinement is torture,"_ said Marlena. _"It has a terrible effect on the psyches of released prisoners going forward. So does being moved to a prison too far away for regular visits from family, but at least this will make writing and calling easier."_

Marlena had calmed down enough that eavesdropping wasn't interesting any longer, so Nicole knocked on the door. It was Belle who opened it with a polite greeting followed by a sideways glance at Eric.

"I came to see how you were," said Nicole.

"I'm fine," said Eric, and he'd stopped with the priestly projecting thing. His voice was quiet and husky instead. "How are you?"

"The same," she said. Then she couldn't resist. "Did you just say you would enjoy solitary confinement?"

"For a day or two," said Eric defensively. "I didn't mean forever."

Marlena could communicate disgust abundantly well without a word.

"Maybe we can take a walk and discuss this?" suggested Eric.

"You're allowed?"

Eric nodded.

"Go ahead," said Marlena, granting permission to her thirty-something convicted felon to leave the house in the middle of the day. "And Nicole, I never thought I'd say this, but perhaps you can talk some sense into him about the reality of punishment in prison."

"I'll consider it," said Nicole magnanimously.

* * *

"I don't need a lecture on the realities of prison, Nicole," said Eric as soon as they were out of earshot of the townhouse. "I've been in prison. I'm going back to prison. You of all people understand why I can't accept an easy way out when there's an alternative."

"They offered you an easy way out?" asked Nicole as calmly as she could manage. Her heart pounded in her ears. She had come to forgive Eric, to say some kind of goodbye to Eric, to get some kind of closure before she moved on with her life and gave Eric her blessing to move on with his. She wasn't sure that she was willing to do any of that if he was getting special treatment five months after beginning his sentence and less than a year after Daniel's death.

"They're concerned that if I go back to Statesville I'll be targeted again. They think that Orpheus and Xander and Clyde highlighted what a great bargaining chip I am."

"Sounds surprisingly reasonable so far."

Eric shrugged. "It's not like everyone there didn't already know who I am. The police commissioner's son. There's my uncle, my cousin. The name _Brady_ means cop. Anyway, they wanted to keep me away from the other prisoners by putting me in solitary."

"Strange as it is to agree with your mother, I kind of have to. That's punishment. That's not protection. That's making you answer for something someone else did."

"Doesn't it all even out in the end?"

"No," said Nicole. On this point, of all points, she was sure. "No, it really doesn't. If things evened out in the end, Daniel wouldn't have died the way he did."

Eric flinched.

Months ago, when Eric had flinched at the sound of Daniel's name, Nicole had hated it. Hated him. Eric didn't get to feel sad when this was all his fault. The only one who got to feel sad was Nicole, because Nicole had lost everything.

Now it was different.

Nicole brushed her hand over Eric's arm. "If things evened out, the world wouldn't have fallen in on you when you messed up and got behind the wheel that night. This would have happened to someone who did stuff like that all the time and never felt any guilt."

"I do feel guilty," said Eric. "I know I can't ask you to make me feel better, and I don't want to feel better. But if it helps you at all to know that I regret what happened every minute of every day, I do. I know that I took a son away from his mother and a father away from his children and a doctor away from his patients and a friend away from half this town, and most importantly I took the man who made you happy and the future you were going to have with him. I was stupid and I hurt you and I can't ever undo it. I don't know if it will ever do you any good that I'm sorry. But if it does, I told you before and I'm telling you now. I'm sorry."

"I know you're sorry," said Nicole. "And I already told you I forgive you. That wasn't a heat of the moment, the man is bleeding all over me decision. I forgive you because I know it was a mistake and I know you'd do anything to fix it if you could. I forgive you even if you don't have to go back to prison," she decided, and she liked her decision a lot.

"I'm going back to prison," said Eric, sounding surprised that she'd thought he was not. "Just not Statesville. They're moving me to a minimum security place out of state. Somewhere where no one knows or cares who the police commissioner of Salem is. They don't usually move people like me out of state, but I guess there isn't anyone else quite like me."

Nicole was well enough aware of that.

"When my dad tried to get me to memorize faces and names and emergency phone numbers to prepare me for Statesville, I didn't want to listen. I didn't want treatment that someone who wasn't the police commissioner's son wasn't going to get. And my dad pointed out that the prisoners were going to treat me differently because I'm his son. He was right." Eric shook his head and looked at the bandaged fingers of his hand, half-amused. "At least Xander hates me for me. This stuff with Orpheus…"

"Enough said," concluded Nicole. "Let's not talk about him. Either of them."

"Okay. Oh, it's not anywhere near the same category, obviously, but I also apologize for the night in my hospital room. Or the morning. I didn't mean for that to happen."

It took Nicole a long moment to figure out what Eric was talking about. When she did, she laughed out loud. _Men_. "Eric, I panicked because I realized I'd spent the night in your bed. Not because of something your body did when you were unconscious. You probably weren't even thinking about me."

He turned sharply to look at her, and in spite of everything the look he gave her made her go weak in the knees. _Oh boy._ "Yes, I was dreaming about you. Look, this is another thing it's the wrong time to say to you but I don't know if I'll ever get another chance. I've been thinking a lot and I'd rather regret saying something than regret not saying it."

"That's new," said Nicole drily. "It used to be that I couldn't pry your feelings out of you with a crowbar."

"Yes, you could. That's it. You cared enough to use the crowbar when no one else did. My feelings are that I didn't appreciate you the way I should have when we were together. You were the only woman who ever really loved me and you're also the only woman I ever truly loved. You forgave me, and I'm grateful for that and that's more than enough. I know that doing more than forgiving me… that being anything other than probably a polite acquaintance or maybe a friend isn't in the cards. You're grieving and when you're ready to move on, you're going to have a lot of men eager to help you. Most of those men will be better men than I am, and none of them will be the man who killed Daniel. But I want you to know that I love you and I always will, and if you ever change your mind—"

"I won't," she said hastily.

Talk about life not being fair. Where had this been two years ago? Five years ago? Ten years ago?

"But if you do, tell me. You won't ever have to wonder what my answer would be."

They had almost come full circle and reached the rows of townhouses. She stopped, and Eric turned to face her. "This is it," she told him. "This is closure. If you come home to your family after they let you go in four years, and I hope you do because your family loves you, you and I will be polite. We'll be friendly. But even though you were my first real love, we will never be anything else. That time in our lives is over, and it is never going to come around again."

"I knew that had to be your answer," said Eric. "But I'm glad I told you. You deserve to know that there's always going to be someone out there wishing you were his. You're brilliant, and you're loyal, and you're compassionate and funny and brave and resilient and open-minded and you're perfect."

"I'm not perfect," said Nicole uncomfortably.

"You're perfect for me," said Eric, and she realized why she had been so uncomfortable. She'd always been the one saying it to Eric. The role reversal made her feel as if the entire world had been turned upside down yet again.

"Not anymore," she corrected. "You're not the kind of man who's going to be ruined by prison. You have connections and you have skills. You're not going to have to fill out a job application where you check the box about being convicted of a felony. You're going to have a new life, and women are going to be throwing themselves at you like they always did."

Eric laughed. "Women never threw themselves at me."

"That's cute that you may actually think that," said Nicole. "Yes, they did. I did. My sister Taylor did, little Princess Greta did, God knows Serena did, half the models you used to photograph did. The next time someone does, consider accepting what she has on offer." Eric started to object. Nicole held up her hand to silence him. "I wish nothing but the best for you, but this is an exit interview for you and me. These last few days have been different because of Xander and all those things we never said before you went to Statesville. But incidental contact from now on. No more eating wedding cake in bed together, and definitely nothing else in bed together. Got it?"

"Understood," said Eric.

She reached up to hug him. "Goodbye."

"Goodbye, Nicole."

She turned and left without looking back. She cradled her left hand in her right, wishing that she hadn't taken off her engagement ring before having this conversation. If she'd been wearing the ring, the whole thing would have been less confusing. If she'd been wearing the ring, she wouldn't have felt the rush of attraction when Eric had told her he'd dreamed about her or the flicker of regret when she'd told him that some other woman would be the one by his side in the next phase of his life. The ring, heavy on her finger, would have reminded her that she and Eric had grown in different directions and would never again fit together, not with the specter of the past between them.

The ring would have kept her from wondering all night, even in her dreams, why Eric's hair had smelled like strawberries.

 _ **To be continued...**_


	2. Letters

Dear Eric,

I know that I said that we weren't ever going to have anything other than incidental contact again, but I went through Brady's mail to find your address because I had to know why your hair smelled like strawberry shampoo the last time I saw you.

I'm not trying to send you mixed messages or be a hypocrite, and I also didn't steam open the envelope and read your letter to Brady.

I just really want to know about the strawberries. It's bothering me. It's keeping me awake at night. Please?

— Nicole

* * *

Dear Nicole,

I can't decide what confused me the most about your letter— that you felt like you couldn't just ask my brother (or any of the fifty people in Salem who are related to me) for my address, that you went out of your way to assure me that you haven't been reading Brady's mail, or that you wrote me a letter at all.

The strawberry shampoo was Claire's. I also drank her chocolate milk and read her genuinely terrible teenage literature while I was staying with Mom. She was very generous, unlike Orpheus and Xander, who kidnapped me from Statesville without giving me a chance to pack.

May I ask why you're losing sleep over someone else's shampoo choices? What if I just liked strawberries? Why would that bother you?

Regards,

Eric

* * *

Dear Eric,

Did you seriously just sign a letter "regards?" Who does that?

Or maybe you didn't. Who can tell, really? That's a rhetorical question. The answer is NO ONE, because no one other than you can read your chicken scratch. It's a wonder your letters even get delivered.

It's also a wonder that they sent you to minimum security rather than maximum security after what you did while you were out. You seriously drank chocolate milk with a teenager and discussed, what, the novels with the sparkly vampires? That's pretty hardcore stuff. Maybe you are an ongoing threat to society after all.

I was only worried about the strawberry shampoo because I was concerned that the other inmates would mark you as an easy target. But now that I know about the chocolate milk and the sparkly vampires, I understand that you can take care of yourself.

—Nicole

* * *

Dear Nicole,

You do understand that if you can answer my letters, you can obviously read my handwriting, right? The one is kind of a prerequisite for the other.

For the record, it wasn't a vampire book. Highlanders, yes, Vampires, no.

Warmest Regards,

Eric

* * *

Dear Eric,

No, I cannot read your handwriting. I couldn't do it even when I was your secretary, and that was with God helping me out because He wanted to make sure that that school opened on time. I know what your letters say because I know you very well and can usually figure out what you want before you make one of your pathetic attempts to tell me.

Also, the Spectator has a computer program that converts illegible writing to print. At first it thought that you were writing in Aramaic, and attempted to translate, but it eventually figured out that it really was a sad attempt at English.

Highlanders, huh? I have new respect for your niece. Not as sweet as she looks.

Warmest Regards is even worse and you know it.

—Nicole

* * *

Dear Nicole,

What are you doing at the Spectator? I'm assuming they don't loan out that software to anyone who comes in with a letter from a prisoner?

Kindest Regards,

Eric

* * *

Dear Eric,

Jennifer didn't tell you? I thought that the two of you must be in touch, but I don't know when she even has time to sleep.

She took over as the Editor in Chief at the Spectator last month. It has been struggling in the digital era and almost went out of business earlier this year. She begged and pleaded and called in favors for the chance to save it. When I asked if she needed a reporter like me, she told me that she did.

It's wonderful. I have never loved my other jobs like I love reporting, with all due respect to the rectory.

—- Nicole

P. S. If you send any kind of regards, this will be your last letter from me.

* * *

Dear Nicole,

That's great news! I'm glad that you're reporting again. You were a wonderful reporter, and you did a lot of good. I think it's a real calling for you. I always did. Jennifer is lucky to have you. Salem is lucky to have you. Be careful, though, will you? Try to keep pissing off diamond smugglers to a minimum.

I wonder if they'll let me subscribe to the Spectator here? We only get internet access under special circumstances (usually that it's absolutely necessary for work) and then with supervision, but there are always paper copies of newspapers around.

Sincerely,

Eric

* * *

Dear Eric,

My first three columns were all about Xander and diamond smuggling and prison escape. Copies enclosed. I left your name out of it and kept references to you to a minimum. People who know us personally will catch them but I don't think they will learn anything that wasn't common knowledge. Most of my content is online video behind the paywall. Harold, Jennifer's friend who is in charge of the digital side for now, is trying everything to get people to pay for content but you know the story with newspapers and the internet.

What do you mean you get the internet if it's "necessary for work?" Do you need it to make license plates or pick up litter on the chain gang?

The sincerely is an improvement, although you being you it is also a trifle redundant.

— Nicole

* * *

Dear Nicole,

I don't know, I think I've had a pretty big problem with sincerity these past few years, but that's not something we need to discuss again. When you asked about work, I was immediately tempted to lie. But I won't.

When they say minimum security, they mean it. It's nothing like Statesville here. Most of the prisoners have been convicted of white collar or non-violent crimes, and the others are near the end of their sentences. If you aren't within five years of the end of your sentence, you aren't sent here. If you were convicted of murder or are a sex offender, you aren't sent here. If you're disciplined for any kind of violence, you get sent back to the maximum security place, which we can see pretty much all the time— it's at the top of the hill, we're at the bottom. We like being on this side of the barbed wire. You were joking about what might happen to me if I walked into Statesville smelling like fruity teenage girl shampoo. It crossed my mind, too. Here? It didn't matter. Would never matter.

They let prisoners out for the day to work, and a lot of the prisoners do have skills that the local businesses can use. For me, since I'm new, you're right that "work" is basically raking leaves all day. All I have to do is sign in and out. I haven't been in handcuffs since I've been here. The only time I was locked in was when they thought one of the other prisoners had walked off; it turned out that he'd just fallen asleep.

The idea is that low security prisons are cheaper to staff and maintain, and that prisoners who have a chance to get used to some freedom and responsibility are going to have a smoother transition when they're released. You know that I used to believe that; you remember your old friend Vargas. I would say I still believe it, but it would sound more than a little self-serving at this point.

It's still punishment, I promise you. If I had a choice, I wouldn't be here. I would go back to the Congo and see if I could find Neema and make sure she's all right. I would go running along the Appalachian Trail (we're very close to part of it but that's not an acceptable reason to sign out). I would come back to Salem and try to make it up to my family after what I put them through last year.

Cordially,

Eric

P. S. Your columns were perfect.

* * *

Dear Eric,

You are infuriating and awful.

No, I do not mean because the longest letter you have ever written me implied that I want you to be chained up and tortured like an animal and would be bothered by knowing that you are not.

I mean that "cordially."

I don't believe what you told me about not having the internet. I think you have the internet and you just use all your time to Google "letter closings that will annoy Nicole."

I, personally, do have internet access and I just looked up your location. First of all, it used to be a Shaker village, and second of all, are there really that many cows?

Jennifer is making me report on the state fair, by the way. There are also too many cows there. Worse, Jennifer started rhapsodizing about this time she wanted to write an article about a horse and Jack made fun of her for having a bleeding heart or something. I feel like I would side with Jack. I always did like him.

—Nicole

* * *

Dear Nicole,

Yes, there are more cows here than I have ever seen in my life, including at the state fair. I used to love that when I was a kid— for the corn dogs, not the cows. It was the one kind of junk food Mom always gave me a pass to eat. Believe it or not, she likes them, too.

I didn't know about the Shaker village aspect, but I asked and you're right. That's also how I find my letter closings. I ask at lunch and take suggestions.

Later Alligator,

Eric

* * *

 **Salem**

Newspapers needed to be staffed 24/7, and Nicole was happy to volunteer to stay at the Spectator all day on Thanksgiving in case something came up. Holidays were for people with families, and she didn't have any family in town. Working would be more fun than brooding about what the day would have been like if she and Daniel had been newlyweds.

"You can cover the paper for part of the day, but then switch off with Harold and come to Thanksgiving at my house," Jennifer argued at first.

Nicole couldn't think of anything she wanted to do less. Some of the Hortons, like Jennifer, were all right in one-on-one situations. Collectively they were a boring ball of smug self-righteousness.

Brady tried to argue her out of it, too. "Let Jennifer handle her own business for a few hours and come to dinner with me," he'd wheedled. She had gently reminded him that he ought to be spending the day with Chloe, and he'd given her a cross look and said that the point of Thanksgiving was inviting everyone. She didn't even ask whether he was trying to get her to celebrate with his Kiriakis family or his Black family. They were both worse than the Hortons.

There was a certain irony to it. Once, when she had been a pariah, Nicole would have given just about anything to be invited to family events like these. Now she was genuinely welcome and she was more content to be left on her own.

Nicole hated irony. She hated the two engagement rings that lay side by side in the back of her unopened dresser drawer. She hated the growing stack of letters that she kept atop the bookcase in her office, a testament to bad timing.

It was early afternoon when she resigned herself to the fact that nothing really needed doing and put pen to paper and began her newest letter.

She got as far as _Dear Eric_ before Brady sauntered into her office without knocking.

"All right, Nic. Enough's enough. This is an intervention."

She shoved her aborted letter under her computer.

"Not everyone likes turkey, Brady," she said, not bothering to hide her irritation. "That doesn't require an intervention."

"You can eat salad and drink wine, then. But you're coming."

"I'm really not."

"You really are."

She groaned and considered slamming her head against the desk. "I'm an adult and I'm allowed to decide where I do and don't go. And in case you haven't noticed, your family hates me and wouldn't appreciate you pushing this."

"I like you," said Brady, flashing a smile that women who weren't Nicole probably found charming. "Tate likes you. Chloe likes you. Parker likes you." Nicole was unmoved, and she could see that Brady was unnerved. He had counted on Parker as his trump card. "I'm pretty sure my dad and Austin kind of like you, and I don't think Carrie or Belle or Claire has much of an opinion, honestly. I know you've had issues with Marlena, but she's not going to make things awkward since Sami and Eric won't be there."

Nicole wasn't sure whether hearing Eric's name made her eyes stray to the pile of letters or whether Brady just happened to notice the distinctive corrections envelopes because Eric was on his mind.

"Are those from Eric?" asked Brady.

"No!" snapped Nicole, and it was the stupidest kind of lie, the lie that could be easily disproved in the space of a second.

"No?" The letters were in his hand and the return address was abundantly clear. "You know a lot of people with the initials ERB at the Shirley Correctional Institution?"

Nicole didn't bother to answer.

"I know you said that you didn't want to hear from him anymore," said Brady. "Has he been harassing you? Is that why you don't want to be around my family? You don't have to protect him, or protect me. If he's not letting go of you, that's not any better for him than it is for you, and we have to find a way to deal with it." He shook open the top envelope and unfolded the letter.

"Do I read your mail?" Nicole demanded.

"You probably have, at some point," said Brady casually. His eyes scanned the letter and flickered with confusion. _"… I didn't know about the Shaker village aspect, but I asked and you're right. That's also how I find my letter closings. I ask at lunch and take suggestions. Later Alligator,"_ he read aloud.

"Not very threatening, is it?" asked Nicole.

"It sounds like the middle of a conversation. So unless my brother has really and truly gone so far around the bend that I need to talk to my stepmother about moving him to a psychiatric hospital, you've been writing back to him."

Nicole felt her temper rising. "So what if I have? You're going to tell me what and with whom I have to eat, and whether I can write letters to someone who was very important to me for a long time?"

"No," Brady answered quietly, and he returned the letters to their usual place. "I'm just surprised."

"Because I said it was the last thing I wanted?" Her tempered simmered down as quickly as it had simmered up. "I thought it was the last thing I wanted. I thought it was a fluke, the way I just fell into talking to him the night after the prison break. I thought it was the circumstances. I thought it was a mirage. I thought it was something that didn't exist anymore and couldn't ever exist again for obvious reasons. I wanted us to go our separate ways. I told him that. You know I told him that."

"I know."

"And then I couldn't stop thinking about him. I thought I just had to ask him one question and it would be fine. And then I saw his handwriting. Do you know I've always hated his handwriting? When I loved him so much I would have died for him and been happy to do it, I hated his handwriting. But it felt like him. I found myself walking around with that envelope in my hand. When he was in Statesville I threw away the letters he sent me without reading them. More than that, I shredded them and thought, _yeah, try to be self-righteous about it now, Eric._ But now when I touch them it feels the same way it felt when I woke up beside him in the hospital."

"Before you ran screaming and crying out of the room?" asked Brady wryly.

"Yeah, before that. That one second where everything was peaceful and warm and perfect."

Brady looked back at the letters, and Nicole wondered if he was trying to see their magical power. "Does he always sign them 'later alligator?'"

Nicole knew perfectly well that all of her letters, and all of Eric's, were read by some sleazy prison bureaucrat looking to get his jollies from other peoples' private lives. It felt more like a violation, though, to hear Brady asking about a stupid joke that was somehow deeply personal.

"Never mind," Brady corrected. "If it's private, it's private. And it's obviously all private since neither one of you told me."

"I wasn't _not_ telling you. I couldn't even admit to myself that it was happening."

"I'm sorry I read your letter, though."

Nicole shrugged. "It's not like I politely stay out of your interpersonal relationships."

"Still not going to get involved with Chloe again," said Brady. "Speaking of which, you told Eric to push me at Chloe if he got a chance, didn't you?"

"He wouldn't do it if he didn't think it was a good idea."

Brady rolled his eyes and held out his hand. "Come to dinner. If there's a Thanksgiving news emergency you can come right back here."

"I don't like the way you imply that Thanksgiving news emergencies aren't a thing."

"Two hours," said Brady.

Nicole was glad that she agreed, because that meant that she could rub it in Brady's face an hour later when the news emergency summoned her back to work.

* * *

Dear Eric,

First of all, you should know that your brother knows that we've been writing to each other. He read your last letter to me— without my permission, so he forfeits any right to complain if he ever finds out how I got your address in the first place— and seems to have been convinced that these letters aren't a sign that one or both of us is in mortal peril after all.

You said a while ago that you wanted to read the Spectator. I looked it up and the only way you can receive newspapers is directly from the publisher. I didn't set it up then because I didn't want anyone to know that we were writing to each other and I kept deluding myself into thinking I was going to stop. The conversation with Brady reminded me that I actually give a shit about his opinion (don't tell him that), as opposed to the opinions of the vast majority of people in this town.

So you're getting the Spectator now— a week's worth at a time, probably two weeks old by the time you see it, but you're getting it. Jennifer was just this side of creepy with her gushy happiness when she realized what I'd done. I'm not sure whether I give a shit what Jennifer thinks. I'll have to get back to you on that.

Anyway, Jennifer is still micromanaging everything despite what probably someone has already told you: the Hortons' Thanksgiving was crashed by Abigail Deveraux DiMera. (And Brady tried to tell me news doesn't happen on holidays and I didn't have to work.)

The Spectator had already been looking into Shady Hills in particular and the state of the mental health system in general. Now we're obsessed. It's what we live and breathe when we don't absolutely have to do something else. It's easy to stay motivated when we see Abigail every day.

Jennifer brings Abigail to the Spectator a lot, when you'd think Abigail would want to spend all of her time with Chad. What precisely is going on with Abigail and Chad and JJ and Gabi I don't want to know. That's a lie. I want to know a little.

So Abigail walks around the newsroom like a ghost. I didn't know her well before she went to Shady Hills and obviously she wasn't right in the head before she went there but looking at her still makes me want to blow the top off of whatever's going on down there.

Jennifer told me the other day how grateful she is to have Abigail back, as if that were something she needed to say out loud. Then she said that she finds herself measuring the percentages. Is Abigail fifty percent herself now? Sixty percent? At what point is she not really Abigail, just someone with Abigail's name and face? Is Jennifer ever going to stop looking at old pictures and thinking "oh, there's Abigail" as opposed to this person she sees every day who sometimes really looks and sounds like Abigail, but sometimes not?

Then she said she felt guilty because she knows that she is blessed to have Abigail back at all, when some losses are so much more complete. I don't know whether she meant Jack or Daniel or both.

I don't know whether it might be better in some ways to lose someone completely, suddenly, and permanently rather than bit by bit.

I don't know why Jennifer had this conversation with me of all people, other than the fact that it was the middle of the night and no one else was around.

I do know that it was a private conversation that I probably shouldn't have written down and shared with you. But you were a priest, and you like Jennifer, and also you're you.

I would offer you my condolences for having to spend Thanksgiving in prison, but let's face it: the food there was definitely better than the food at your family's house. It's not like your mother tried to cook from scratch. All she had to do was turn on the oven and the microwave and heat things up. You wouldn't think that that would be a problem.

Marlena should have stuck with those corndogs you and she like so much. I was going to try one when I was at the fair last month, since you mentioned them, but I looked at them and decided that there weren't enough martinis in the world to make that happen.

But I'm sure they were better than the turkey.

— Nicole

* * *

Dear Nicole,

I wouldn't think that letting my mother turn on a microwave or an oven to warm up something that had already been cooked would be a problem!? Yes, I would think that that would be a problem! What was wrong with all of you letting her do that? It was usually my job to distract her so someone else could do it, but Belle or Brady should have been able to handle it. For God's sake, Brady has a baby. All he had to do was dump Tate in Mom's lap for long enough for anyone else in that house to push a couple of buttons. Easy.

I don't know why I'm bothering to explain this to you. You don't appreciate that corndogs would be the best Thanksgiving dinner ever.

I'm glad you were there, though. I wouldn't like to think of you being alone.

About the more serious part of your letter: anything private that you say to me goes no further than me, except for the guards who read everything that either one of us writes. They're usually pretty good about pretending that they haven't, though. The exception was the time Mom made Claire write to me as punishment for sneaking off and Claire explained in great detail that she was writing under duress. The man was laughing his head off and I don't blame him.

What Jennifer said to you is what a number of parishioners said to me at various times. Usually it comes up with people older than Abigail: people suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's or strokes. It's a common feeling and it isn't wrong unless you act on it and punish the sick person for being sick. I can't imagine for a second that that's happening with Jennifer and Abigail.

There aren't many absolutes out there, but comparing losses is almost always a bad idea.

Grace and Peace,

Eric

P.S. Thank you for the Spectator subscription. It means more than I can tell you. I am so, so happy that you are thriving there. But please be careful when you're poking around places like Shady Hills.

P.P.S. Since you don't care about Jennifer's children's love lives, I won't tell you that the thing you think may have happened between Gabi and Chad definitely happened. Belle's duties at DiMera Enterprises apparently extend to knowing that and sharing with me.

P.P.P.S. I am never going to live in a house that has a secret room, or a panic room, or a dungeon, or whatever they call it. Never. Nothing good ever happens in those things.

P.P.P.P.S. I really shouldn't have gone with "Grace and Peace" if I was going to spread gossip.

P.P.P.P.P.S. These longer letters are hard.

* * *

Dear Eric,

Longer letters are hard, but they're good, aren't they? I did start keeping yours in a locked desk drawer instead of on my bookcase after that last one, though.

You made me laugh when I needed to. Thank you. You were always good at that. Do you know that one of my favorite memories in my entire life was the time I was blowing my first modeling shoot, and Sami and Franco were about to void my contract, and you told me to picture them in each other's clothes? You saved my career in that one second. If you'd used the line people usually use— about picturing them in their underwear— it would have brought me right back to my previous time in front of the camera with my father's "friends" and I would have looked even stiffer. But you didn't. You had to twist things just enough.

Then, so many lifetimes later, when I didn't want you taking pictures of me for the story about the fallen priest and you had a list of fake gossip to distract me? It worked just as well.

I know I've always given you a lot of crap about not having a sense of humor, and I probably always will, so this one time I'm going to tell you the truth: you actually are funny. Sometimes even on purpose.

Enough of that. Abigail is doing better driving Jennifer nuts (oops, poor choice of words) by consistently siding with Harold about rebranding the Spectator as a media conglomerate instead of a newspaper. The more she does the better she gets.

Our big story is going to print later this week. A nice early Christmas present for those fools at Shady Hills.

What about you? What are you doing all day? You must have run out of leaves to rake by now.

— Nicole

* * *

Dear Nicole,

I just wish that last set of publicity pictures had been put to good use. You looked so beautiful. One shoulder showing, the green of your dress bringing out your eyes, all that wisdom and desire to crusade for the truth making you even more beautiful than you were when you were a kid. Which is not to say I could ever take my eyes off of you when we were kids. You know I couldn't. You were the best subject any photographer ever had.

It took a lot longer to run out of leaves to rake than I would have thought. My theory is that the cows went out at night and collected leaves from all the neighboring towns and dumped them in our area so we'd have to deal with them. Maybe the Spectator can do an investigation into that if the current big story doesn't win you your Pulitzer.

They've switched me over to doing GED tutoring and I love getting the chance to do something worthwhile. Some of these men, mostly the ones who are in the last few years of long sentences for things like armed robbery, are functionally illiterate. How are they supposed to have any chance to return to society if society failed them that badly early on? I'm going to start reading the Spectator with them every day.

If I don't hear from you, I hope you have, if not a merry Christmas, at least a hopeful one. I know that the holidays are going to be difficult for you and if I could do anything to take that pain away I would.

A few years ago, you gave me the best Christmas present I have ever gotten when we talked about Neema and Father Ryan. The next year, when I couldn't bring myself to go anywhere near St. Luke's for Midnight Mass, you were the only one who thought of taking me out of town and sitting in the back and not talking to anyone else, but still being there. I know I thanked you at the time, but I didn't thank you enough. I should have remembered that the next Christmas instead of throwing Serena in your face. And by the next Christmas after that, it was too late. And this Christmas it's even more too late.

I know you've forgiven me. I know that saying I'm sorry over and over doesn't help.

I'm doing this wrong again. I never expected to spend Christmas in prison. Good boys do not spend Christmas in prison. Good men do not spend Christmas in prison.

I hope that on Christmas you remember how much you have meant to so many people and have faith that even though you're hurting, that love that you put into the world will come back to you.

Peace and Blessings,

Eric

* * *

Dear Eric,

Of course you're doing GED tutoring. Of course you are.

I don't know if you remember this or even if you ever knew, but my prisoner criminal all around horrible human being sperm donor was illiterate. Not just functionally illiterate. Couldn't read at all in English or in Spanish.

I don't think that learning to read would have made him less of an asshole. But if anyone can make a difference for the men you're working with, you can.

Hell, maybe it would have made old Paul Mendez less of an asshole if it hadn't embarrassed him that his children could read and he couldn't. Brandon would taunt him about it because Brandon couldn't help himself. (And Brandon wanted to take the beatings rather than let our mother or me take them.) Somehow it wasn't an issue with Taylor. She got branded the genius in the family from the minute she was born, although it probably helped a lot that she had a brother and sister who could help her with her homework. How Brandon did it, I'll never know. Me? I figured doing well in school would antagonize the old lech. By the time I was a teenager he had me working all the time anyway, and I was not in the headspace you need to be in to sit there and read about the life cycle of a fruit fly. They let me graduate high school because they wanted to see the end of those Mendez/Walker kids by any means necessary.

At work, I do a lot of digging so I get bylines on the big investigative pieces but I'm never the one who does the real writing. When I write the column, Jennifer edits me to death. I wish I'd had the chance to learn something in school.

On behalf of some convict's kid somewhere in New England, thank you for trying.

I checked the rules about Christmas and your current place of residence. You're only allowed to be sent a certain kind of package through a certain vendor and the rules for visiting are way more complicated than the life cycle of a fruit fly. I saw your mother in Salem Place yesterday and asked. She said everything had been taken care of and there's nothing more that I can do. Then she thanked me for caring and said it was inspiring that I had come so far in the way I carry myself and the way I relate to you compared to last year. I even think she meant it. She also said that I could join your family for Christmas if I wanted to. I told her that I would rather lie on a bed of nails than spend another holiday with her weird family and their weird rules about who does what to keep her from destroying the food. Some of this paragraph is true.

—Nicole

* * *

 **Shirley Correctional Institution**

With each day, Christmas drew a little closer and the knot in Eric's chest grew a little tighter. His head ached. His stomach was always upset. For the first time since he'd dragged himself, thoroughly hungover, onto the bus to Statesville, he felt a very real desire to use alcohol to numb the pain.

He wasn't sure where to get it, but he was sure that he could make a good guess. For all that everyone knew that the smallest infraction could result in a one-way trip to maximum security, prisoners always found a way to brew or steal or smuggle a little something.

He prayed every time the thought arose.

He reread the letters from Nicole and his family.

On Christmas, he forced himself to attend services and was slightly comforted to notice that almost everyone else looked as miserable as he felt.

Christmas fell on a Sunday, which happened to be the main day for weekly visitors year round. Eric had mostly tuned out the talk of whether visiting hours would be changed or canceled because of the holiday. His family lived a thousand miles away. They couldn't very well swing by after mass and before they got together with the Hortons to exchange presents.

He had, at his father's behest, filled out the forms pre-approving his parents, Carrie, Brady, and Belle as visitors. Five was the limit, and that was five more than he needed.

Nicole's name was not on the list. It couldn't be; when he'd left for prison, she had been abundantly clear that they were at best casual acquaintances now.

Besides, a scant seven days after Christmas would come the first anniversary of Daniel Jonas' death. Nicole would be miserable and it would be Eric's fault. He couldn't ask her to assuage his own feelings of grief and fear and shame when her devastation would feel raw and fresh all over again.

Nicole had, in her last letter, implied that she had looked into visiting and in his weaker moments he fantasized that she would miraculously appear (it was the time of year for miracles) and they would have the Christmas that they should have had a year ago, or two years ago.

Why had he paraded Serena around in front of his family when he had known, deep down, that it would always be Nicole in his heart?

When one of the guards summoned him to the visiting room, Eric stared at the man in confusion and wondered if he had simply misheard or taken leave of his senses. "We don't have all day," the guard growled. "You don't want to see your sister, there's lots of folks who would like to use the visiting rooms."

Eric hasted to obey with a flurry of apologies. "Which sister?" he asked.

"The pretty one."

"They're all pretty," said Eric, ignoring the guard's lascivious undertone and trying to sound blandly loyal.

"Isabella," the guard grunted in concession.

 _Belle_. Belle who had a rocky marriage and a teenage daughter who would be eager to spend holidays far away from her parents sooner rather than later. Belle had no business visiting Eric under the circumstances. He still had to work hard to stand still for the quick once-over he received before the door to the visiting room slid open.

He was eternally glad that he called Belle's name before he saw anything more than blonde hair.

"Hi, big brother," chirped Sami in a reasonable approximation of Belle at her most bubbly. Sami gave Eric the quick hug that was permitted in what was known as a "contact visit." They sat across from each other at the table and Eric wondered if it would be too much to ask that this year's Christmas miracle be no lasting ramifications for himself, Sami, or Belle over this stunt.

"Does our sister know you're here?" Eric began pleasantly, hoping that Sami would understand his actual meaning, which was _couldn't Belle be disbarred if someone thinks she let you use her identity like this?_

"The whole family knows," said Sami in her most reassuring tone of voice, which wasn't all that reassuring. "We couldn't let you be alone on Christmas."

"So… _Sami_ knows? Sami can't visit me because Sami is wanted for questioning in a legal matter and doesn't have a permanent address."

"Believe me, Sami is painfully well aware of that."

"It wouldn't be a problem if Sami would stop chasing ghosts and return the money."

"That is exactly what I told my beautiful and intelligent big sister," said Sami-as-Belle. "I want her to give the money back to Chad DiMera, because since I've been working for him I've decided that he is going to take Stefano's companies completely legit. Sami, however, thinks that giving that money to the DiMeras is the same as handing them a weapon to destroy our family. Maybe it won't ever be Chad. But it will be someone, and someday we'll be glad that we have this leverage."

"How are Sami's children doing while Sami continues to protect the world by embezzling money?"

"Sami's children are currently enjoying the holiday with Lucas."

Eric nodded. That was good.

"Speaking of Lucas," continued Sami. "He gave me a list of questions that I need to have you answer." She glanced around the room. Several other visits were taking place nearby, and the guards seemed to be letting hand-holding slide. Sami grabbed Eric's wrist.

Eric bristled in response. This wasn't an affectionate gesture, or at least that wasn't all it was. Sami was about to question him about his drinking, and she was convinced that she would be better able to tell if he was lying by touching him.

The problem was, Eric was afraid that Sami was right. He couldn't very well jerk his arm away. That would worry Sami, and she would tell the rest of the family, and to top it off the guards would notice and start monitoring them more carefully.

"When was the last time you had a drink?" asked Sami.

"Before I went to Statesville."

Sami seemed to accept that. Eric rolled his eyes. "You sure you don't want to start with some baseline questions? Ask me my name and my favorite color?"

"I don't think that will be necessary," said Sami airily. "Have you been going to meetings?"

He had, more because it was a sign of good behavior for someone who had been incarcerated for drunk driving and vehicular manslaughter. He told Sami as much.

"Last time you had any temptation to drink?"

"This morning," said Eric.

To his surprise, Sami smiled. "But you didn't?"

"Of course not."

"Good." Her grin got even wider. "Lucas thought that you would say you hadn't been tempted at all, and that that would be a lie. Now I get to tell Lucas all about how he underestimated you."

"I didn't know that you and Lucas were so close, _Belle_ ," Eric muttered.

"Sometimes we like to get together and talk about how superior we are to Sami, and how we hated EJ but we like Chad. Sami finds it very aggravating, but she generously lets it go. What's weird is that I'm pretty sure Lucas actually likes _you_ at this point. After everything that happened with Nicole, I didn't see that one coming."

Eric's pulse jumped at the mention of Nicole's name. Sami didn't fail to notice. "Still, Eric?" she whispered.

"Let's talk about anything else," Eric whispered just as quietly.

Sami turned Eric's hand over in hers and looked at his fingers. Over the past few months, the pain had faded to nothing, but the edges of the nails were warping as if they might fall off and blood stains still marked the places where Xander had slammed the van door on Eric's hand. "This is from Orpheus?" she asked.

"Xander," Eric corrected.

"Does it hurt?"

"Not anymore."

"What was it like to see Orpheus? To know he was the one who… who made our childhood what it was?"

Eric shivered and squeezed Sami's hand. "It felt like a violation and I was glad it was me and not you."

"It scared the hell out me that that day. I haven't felt you like that since we were in a room like this because I was on death row."

Eric looked around as subtly as he could. Sami had chosen her spot to drop all pretense of being Belle carefully. The guards were watching but not listening.

"Do you remember what I said to you that day?" Sami continued. "I told you that even if I'm dead and you're alive, I'll still be able to know whether you're happy, and I want you to be happy. Neither one of us is dead, but I haven't protected you the way I should have. I'm sorry. I want to do better. And I really do think that keeping the DiMera money out of DiMera hands helps all of us."

"I'd rather you took care of yourself and your children by dropping the vigilante thing."

"I know you would," said Sami simply. "And I wish it had been me and not you face to face with Orpheus. You've had enough happen to you these last few years."

"You haven't?"

"True." Sami shrugged. "I know that today and next week are going to be hard for you. The bad anniversaries are always really hard. Prison is hard. But I know that I survived and so can you. We're made of the same stuff."

Eric nodded. His throat threatened to swell shut.

Sami launched into a recitation of the time they'd played Mary and Joseph in the nativity play as children, and hadn't it crossed any of the adults' minds that it was a little bit gross to cast a brother and sister in those particular roles?

It seemed that only a moment had passed before the guards were warning "Isabella" that her time was up. There was one more quick hug, and an exchange of _I love yous_ , before Eric returned to his cell and tried with every fiber of his being to forget that his next four Christmases would be exactly like this one.

* * *

Dear Eric,

Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, and fuck you.

I don't mean that in the fun way, in case you thought that this was a love letter.

Not that you ever thought that it was fun, what with all the Catholic guilt. I guess you're in the right place, and I don't just mean prison. The day I looked up your location and saw the stuff about it being a former Shaker village, I started muttering about Shakers because I thought I'd heard about them in school but didn't remember exactly who they were. Jennifer overheard me and volunteered that the Shakers died out because they believed that everyone should be celibate.

That suits you, doesn't it? No sex outside marriage, no sex at all for people the Church decides are unworthy of marriage.

And yes, I remember that someone is reading this letter to make sure I'm not telling you how to escape, as if I would. Confidential to the bureaucratic drudge: feel free to make fun of Eric if you want to.

It's not just that you took yourself away from me because I wasn't good enough or pure enough for your lofty standards.

First you took Brady away, too.

No, wait, first it was the chance for a perfectly nice night with Vargas, who after all was your special project. "Your old friend Vargas," you called him in one of your letters. I hate that I remember that. I'm going to shred all of your letters after I write this one. That's right, SHRED. So there's something for you to be superior about for the next year.

Anyway, Vargas. I got into bed with him. You know what happened next? I said your fucking name. Moaned it, probably, because you were all I ever thought about. Now, that's bad enough under normal circumstances, but Vargas thought that you had always been a priest and didn't know we had a past. He thought that I had some kind of screwed up religious fetish, which was even worse than the truth that I have some kind of screwed up Eric fetish. He couldn't get away from me fast enough.

Now Vargas wasn't a big loss. Attractive, fun, but not someone who had my soul on a platter or anything.

Brady.

Brady and I have been friends since almost the minute you left Salem to get away from me. (Since we're on that topic— fine. I'm sorry about misleading you about the cancer diagnosis to get you to sleep with me. And for ruining your relationship with Greta. That was wrong. It was _easy_ , but it was wrong. Maybe when you get out of prison you should go find Greta. She was afraid of sex, too.)

Brady is my oldest and my dearest friend and for a long time that had nothing to do with you. Your name never came up and I never even thought of him as your brother. Sometimes I was in love with him and sometimes he was in love with me and who knows what would have happened if those times had ever overlapped. They didn't, and what we ended up with was a friends with benefits situation that benefitted us both.

Until it didn't. Until you.

When Brady found out that Kristen had seduced him to get revenge on John and Marlena, you know what happened. You weren't supposed to know. There was a day that you came to the Kiriakis Mansion when we didn't expect you and the lengths that we went to to make sure you didn't find out what you almost walked into… it was an episode of a bad 80s sitcom. So it got to the point where if we had to work that hard to hide something, we knew it was wrong. We stopped. We stopped over you.

Then Brady, showing that rocket scientist side of him that always comes out when he's in love, went and told Kristen everything and naturally it took her about three-tenths of a second to throw it in your face. And of course you gave us _permission_ , and said there was no reason to hide it, looking like a kicked puppy the whole time.

So don't pretend you didn't take Brady away from me even though you said it was okay. You did.

You know what day today is? It's January 1. It's the anniversary of Daniel's death.

You won't argue if I say you took Daniel away from me. We've been there and done that.

I just wanted to feel something else that wasn't Daniel's death.

It wasn't going to be martinis. When I think of drinking on New Year's Eve, all I think of is you, and me seeing you and knowing you weren't in your right state of mind. I told you to get a cab, but I didn't take the next step and make sure you did. I didn't take your keys out of your pocket and say I'd give them back the next day. Even though I knew that you were a wreck over me, I didn't do it. I had too much going on, and I was still mad that you'd been mad about me shredding those documents for so long. If you could hold a grudge, so could I.

(If you knew what it did to me to see you in that hotel room after Kristen drugged you, you never could have been angry with me. If you knew what it did to me when you accused me of being the one who drugged you, you never could have been angry with me. If you knew what I went through to find those documents in the first place, you never could have been angry with me. If you knew what it did to me when you said you loved me but you kept me at arm's length physically and in every other way, you could never have been angry with me.)

So I couldn't bury myself in martinis and I couldn't bury myself in sex. Brady still won't admit that he and Chloe should give it another try, and a night with me might have focused his thinking, but no. Daniel's heart in Brady's chest. Your eyes, telling the truth when your lips lied about not caring.

Dario? Deimos? Those men that oh-so-wanted to get me over Daniel? After I saw you during the prison break, I ignored them and married myself to the Spectator. They've moved on, and tracking them down wasn't much of an option. Too much effort for too little reward.

What I'm doing instead is writing to you for the last time.

You've ruined me for all men, and I don't mean that in the flattering way.

You've ruined me.

I'm ruined.

I love you.

Don't ever contact me again.

—Nicole

* * *

 **Salem**

Nicole dropped her final letter to Eric in the mail before she lost her nerve.

 _That's starting the new year off right,_ she reminded herself. _Getting rid of the past._ Eric Brady was her past. She'd been lured closer to feeling otherwise with every letter that he'd written her. Those feelings were ridiculous.

She would cut those feelings off at the source.

With a rush of dizziness that she was sure came from the late hour (or the early hour, if she was going to be technical about it) rather than from any emotion, she gathered Eric's letters and walked from her office to alcove filled with recycling bins, scanners, and a shredder. She had told Eric that she would shred his letters that way she'd shredded his precious evidence. The news was in the mail. She couldn't make herself a liar.

She jumped when she saw movement in the alcove. Who else would be here at five in the morning on New Year's Day? Everyone was either asleep or staggering home from a party. Only Nicole was holed up in her office pouring out her heart to the man who had ruined her life.

"Hi, Nicole," said Abigail casually, as if there was nothing odd about the situation. She turned the baby in her arms to face Nicole. "Thomas? Can you say hello to Nicole?"

Thomas didn't say anything. Nicole decided not to take offense. She didn't have the energy to say hello to Thomas. She didn't have the energy to coo over him or say how sweet he was or dwell on her own son who hadn't lived to cry or open his eyes, let alone be fascinated by the shredder at his grandmother's newspaper.

"Thomas loves watching things go through the shredder," Abigail explained unnecessarily.

"You came out here in the middle of the night for that?" asked Nicole. "Might be safer to get one at home."

"We were already out," said Abigail. "Chad was talking about new beginnings and letting the past go…" she trailed off.

The letters burned hot in Nicole's hands.

 _Hot like the furnace. Xander. Eric._

"Do you have anything fun for Thomas to shred?" asked Abigail.

What the hell. Jennifer knew that Nicole had been writing to Eric for months, so it seemed likely that Abigail knew as well. Nicole handed the letters to Abigail and felt immediately bereft.

Abigail took in the return address with wide eyes. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure," said Nicole. "Thomas and I will both enjoy watching them be obliterated, won't we, Thomas?"

Thomas burbled, and Nicole chose to think of it as an endorsement of her stellar decision making process rather than a response to hearing his name.

"Maybe it's because I grew up with parents who revered the written word to an almost psychotic extent," said Abigail, "but I could never imagine shredding love letters."

"They aren't love letters!" Nicole snapped.

Abigail gave Nicole a look that suggested that she knew otherwise but simply wasn't going to argue the point out of politeness. "This is a really, really bad day for you, Nicole. It's a horrible anniversary for all of us." She shook her head. "I never should have gone out with Chad. I should have stayed with Mom. I shouldn't have yelled at Chad. I shouldn't make decisions on a day like this. Maybe neither should you."

"No offense, Abigail, but you have no idea what went on between Daniel and me and even less idea what went on between Eric and me."

Thomas was mostly asleep in Abigail's arms, and she transferred him skillfully into the waiting stroller.

"All right," said Abigail. "We'll leave you alone to shred." She balanced the letters carefully atop the shredder and pushed Thomas' stroller in the direction of the garage.

Nicole almost shoved the whole pile of them into the shredder at once just to prove to Abigail that she made great decisions and didn't need them challenged by an escapee from a mental institution.

The longer the letters rested heavy in her hand, the further she got from her chance. They were joy and agony at the same time.

She remembered the words that had snuck into her final letter to Eric without her permission.

 _I love you._

 _I don't mean that in the fun way, in case you thought that this was a love letter._

 _They aren't love letters!_

They were love letters.

She'd never thought that love letters would be about cows and shampoo.

Maybe they'd been doing it wrong.

She had a long history of doing love wrong.

Nicole walked the letters back to her office and locked them in their drawer, and then walked herself to the diner where her mother had worked— the diner she hadn't visited since the morning she'd awoken with her body wrapped around Eric's.

She didn't have long to wonder whether she would see any old friends of her mother's this time; she was hailed as soon as she opened the door.

"Nicole!"

Even under the circumstances, she almost smiled. Abe had that effect on her. She suspected that Abe had that effect on almost everyone.

"Happy new year, Mr. Mayor," she said with as much brightness as she could manage. "Checking on your constituents first thing in the morning on the first day of the year? That goes above and beyond the call of duty."

"I was at the official celebration in the town square, and I was afraid to go to bed," Abe told her. "Disasters tend to happen on New Year's Eve."

"I'm aware," said Nicole.

"I'm sorry, Nicole," said Abe. "I wasn't thinking."

"It's all right." Nicole brushed off the apology and joined him at his table. "Did you used to come here and talk to my mother?"

"I did. I almost expect her to walk out that door." He gestured toward the kitchen. "She was special. Always had something to say that was smart and fun and just a little bit off center. You get that from her."

It was a good compliment, as compliments went. A little bit off center, she could do. "Do you think love letters can be about cows and shampoo?"

Abe's quick smile lit up the room. "I think love can be about absolutely anything that touches your life, so I don't see why love letters should be any different."

"I was afraid of that."

"May I ask why?"

A waitress, one who didn't seem to know Nicole, brought them coffee and took their orders. It gave Nicole time to consider whether she should tell Abe the truth.

Half the town knew, she decided. Abe might as well know too.

"I accidentally wrote some love letters to Eric," said Nicole.

Abe raised his eyebrows. "Accidentally?"

"Accidentally," said Nicole firmly. "But then I told him I was going to stop and that he should stop, too."

"And now you regret that?"

"Maybe."

"You could write him another letter telling him that you changed your mind."

"That's not very fair." Nicole sighed. "Prison is hard enough. It was hard for me and I was the kind of person who always expected to end up in prison."

"Nicole."

"You know it's true. It's not fair for me to jerk Eric around like this. The person who got dumped is supposed to be the one who decides whether there's going to be any kind of contact after the relationship is over. Eric told me he was always going to love me, and I said no, there wasn't going to be anything between us. Then I started writing to him. Then I told him to stop. There's a limited number of times that I can change my mind here."

"I'm sure Eric understands that this is an unusually complicated situation."

Nicole glanced up in surprise. "No lecture about how you and my mother used to get together and discuss how I always had to control everything?"

Abe chuckled softly. "Not this time. It occurs to me, though, that I'm the only person on this planet who knew you as a little girl and Eric as a little boy."

"I assume he was enlightened and evolved and didn't try to control everything."

"He preferred to ignore the upheaval in his life and refuse to deal with it."

"What a shock."

"He was a wonderful little boy."

"Even more shocking."

"Roman— John— used to take him to the park alone and bribe him with ice cream to get him to talk about what he was really thinking. Make sure he wasn't just following Carrie and Sami's leads."

"I wonder if that still works," mused Nicole.

A few hours had passed since she'd said goodbye to Eric forever, and she was already pondering new ways to deal with him when he started brooding.

She'd resigned herself to the fact that she'd forgiven him.

Now she had to resign herself to the fact that she loved him.

The new year wasn't even seven hours old and she was already exasperated with it.

"Do you think that stationary store on the Square is open on New Year's Day?" she asked Abe.

* * *

Dear Eric,

This one is a love letter. After all of the mixed messages, let me be very clear about that.

I love you.

The mixed messages weren't completely my fault. I didn't understand what kind of message I wanted to send. I didn't understand why every time I told you to go away, and you respected my wishes, I ended up climbing into your hospital bed or knocking on your parents' door or writing you a letter.

I love you.

It's inconvenient and awkward and ridiculous. There are billions of men on this planet and I've married at least half of them. But the one who is always going to matter to me above all others is you.

If anyone else had been the one who caused the accident that killed Daniel, I wouldn't have forgiven him, let alone fallen in love with him. (Stayed in love with him? I don't know that I was ever out of love with you. I loved Daniel. While I'm at it, I loved EJ. Brady, too, you know that. But in some part of me, it has always been you. You said once that even though we went our separate ways, and we were good, I would always be the love of your life. That's where I am.)

I was able to forgive you for Daniel's death because I know that it was an accident and that your grief and your regret are real, not to mention because you went to prison when you probably could have wiggled out of it. And also because you're you.

I was able to forgive you because when I asked you to back off and let me be with Daniel, you did. I know it hurt you to do it, and I know I didn't treat you with the same respect over the years when I felt jealous. You put my happiness above your own.

Even though when I tried to tell you that I'm not your type, you told me you disagreed.

Even though you told me that I was the only woman who ever truly loved you. (I don't know whether that's true, but I do know that no woman could love you more.)

I want you to know that I didn't choose Daniel over you because I loved him more. I did it because it was easy and I was tired of fighting. My relationship with Daniel was easy. We were already living together, and there was Parker for a ready-made family. You always felt like a risk: the son of the cop with the daughter of a criminal, the sweet innocent with the porn star, the priest with the secretary. With Daniel, I never ended up locked in a furnace waiting to die, not literally and not metaphorically.

Not that I don't love you for that, too. For running to my rescue when Xander would have killed me in my office. For burning your hands trying to protect me. For backing us into that furnace crawlspace in the first place. For casually stopping me from beating up Serena without actually criticizing me for beating up Serena. (I want you to know that I donated her blood diamond money to the Horton Center, by the way. You never gave me a chance to tell you.)

I love you for your marriage proposals. Both of them. Another thing you should know is that I still have your ring. That proposal with the photographs was the most romantic moment of my entire life.

On less romantic occasions, I love that you were good about standing up for me when your mother or your sister attacked me in front of you. I know how much you love Marlena and Sami and how much they love you. Not everyone would do that, believe me; you should see the inside of the Kiriakis house where old man Victor slut-shames girls young about to be his granddaughters every minute of every day and the suggestions that he knock it off are few and far between. And I love that when I went off on you for your rules about premarital sex and religious marriage, you listened to me.

I love that when I tried to film you talking about Kristen did to you, all you could do was talk about how you'd hurt me by accusing me. Or I should say that in theory I love the sentiment. In practice, I want you to know that sometimes things are about you and not everyone else. If you'll let me, I'll remind you once in a while.

I love the way you forgive Brady for getting high and saying hideous things to you. I get it. I think he's worth it, too.

I want you to know that the night after Chyka tried to kill us, when we were in the hospital, I cried into my pillow for hours just whispering "he loves me, he loves me," over and over. As frustrating as it was to have you tell me that you wanted to go slowly after that, I know that it was because you wanted to protect me and didn't want me to be a post-Church rebound. I love you for that.

I love you for having been the kicker on your high school football team. For obvious reasons.

I love that you were able to tell me that you loved me again after all those years, even knowing everything I did, including stealing your twin sister's baby and making your brother an unknowing accessory.

I love that you were able to talk a drug-addicted robber out of murdering you and then make sure he got treatment instead of prison. Don't get me wrong, I still think you were out of your ever-loving mind for doing it, but I also admire your strength and compassion. I watched you stay up all night with dying parishioners and work nonstop to open a new school, and was in awe of your decency. We don't have a lot of decency where I come from.

I love that when everyone in Salem hated me, you gave me a home, a job, a purpose, a shoulder, and your faith. You still thought I was brilliant and valuable and you told me so every day. At the same time, you always encouraged me to move on from the rectory because that was best for me, even though it would be worse for you. I love you for (usually) laughing at my religious jokes instead of scolding me. I love that you let me get so much pleasure out of telling you how straight-laced you are. I love you for finding a lot of the crazy stuff I do cute, even when you probably shouldn't.

I love you for telling me why you became a priest when you hadn't told anyone else. You acted like that was me doing you a favor—you even gave me that beautiful picture of the African sunrise to thank me—but it was the other way around. You let me know that I was worthy of trust and that I could help other people. Even good people. Even the best person.

I love you because when I hit rock bottom after I lost my son, I saw you and knew there was a God.

I love you because when I hit rock bottom after I lost my son, I saw your Roman collar and knew God had a sense of humor.

I love you because when you left Salem, and we were about to be apart for twelve years, you told me that you would always love me. And you meant it.

I love you for forgiving me for lying about having cancer to get you to make love to me, and for manipulating Greta and pretending to be her friend, and for breaking our engagement by marrying Lucas, knowing Lucas was going to use that marriage to keep Will away from your family.

I love you because for all of my fears that you wouldn't understand about Misty Circle, you didn't blink an eye when you found out.

I love you for buying me a house with a white picket fence. We will get back there someday, Eric. I promise. I was afraid and I ran. It took seventeen years and thousands of miles and several genuinely disastrous marriages, but I know better now.

I love you for being kind to Taylor, but never returning her romantic feelings (unlike I certain ex-husband of mine) no matter how many times Taylor pointed out that I was lying to you.

I love you because when you were a kid you used to buy chocolate milk and muffins for teenage runaways and then convince them to let you call the authorities to take them home. You said you did it because the girls reminded you of Sami, but my past being what it was, it touched me, too.

I love you because when our first time together ended with you telling me that it was your first time, ever, I knew you were telling the truth even though I wouldn't have known if you hadn't told me. You were a natural, and those girls in your congregation who used to call you Father What-a-Waste behind your back were more right than they knew. I told you then that I wished that I had waited for you the way you waited for me. I still wish that. I wish I'd been able to say "I am worth the best and I won't settle for anything else." I'm saying it now.

I love you because of the day you kissed me on the beach in California. Lucas made fun of you for going too slow, but you knew that you knew what you were doing and you were right. I love you because when my ex Jay showed up and I was sure that you were going to lose respect for me, you protected me instead. I didn't have faith then. I have it now. It is because of you and it is for you.

I love you because you were the one who took the pictures that made me a successful model. It's not about the money, although that was nice. It's about the way you made the world see whatever beauty you saw in me. You were the one who fought for me to have a chance to model for Titan in the first place. You were the one who insisted that I was something more than what I thought I was.

I was a waitress in the Java Cafe who thought she would never escape her past. You sat down at my table every day and smiled at me. I knew it was ridiculous because you were from a whole other world. I knew it was ridiculous that every time you smiled I forgot my own name. More than that, I forgot all of my names—Nicole Walker, Nicole Mendez, Misty Circle.

It seemed ridiculous again, when I wrote that last letter, that I would love you.

You of all people, the earnest do-gooder son of a cop and a doctor when I was a waitress with a past I couldn't even think about, let alone tell you about.

You of all people, the man who caused that accident.

You of all people.

Only you.

-Nicole

* * *

 **Shirley Correctional Institution**

The two letters from Nicole came in the same mail delivery, both thick and heavy and unexpected. It hadn't even been Nicole's turn to write; Eric had planned to hold off on replying to her until after the new year and the anniversary of Daniel's death.

He knew as soon as he began to read that he had picked up the second letter first.

 _This one is a love letter. After all of the mixed messages, let me be very clear about that._

So _this one_ was a love letter. The other one was, what, a hate letter? He was glad it had taken its time reaching him, then. It was pathetic and he knew it, but spending the holidays behind bars had been hard enough without hearing words of hate from the woman he loved.

 _I love you._

He wasn't going to stop reading and go back to the other letter so he could get the order correct after that.

He couldn't even stop at one reading. He read the letter over and over and over again.

He counted the number of times she told him that she loved him. Twenty-eight, perhaps? Did he count the times where she implied it, or the times when she said that she loved something in particular?

He ran his fingers over her words and wondered if she'd done the same. She'd bought stationary for this letter, old-fashioned stationary from a specialty shop instead of just using whatever scrap of paper might have been lying around the Spectator.

The thought of Nicole having stationary turned him on. When they made it back to the house with the white picket fence, he was going to make sure that she had a beautiful desk with a drawer full of stationary even if she mostly used the desk to store her computer while she investigated corrupt mental institutions and the origin of blood diamonds.

When he noticed that he had only ten minutes left before he was expected in the classroom for reading lessons— and he was now more appalled than ever that some people couldn't read well enough to appreciate a love letter— he snatched open the hate letter and steeled himself for the worst.

 _Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, and fuck you._

Well, that wasn't a promising start.

And Nicole probably wouldn't care for it if he told her that, technically, the Shakers hadn't died out because there was one small community left in Maine.

He lost his bravado, and his desire to split hairs, as he read on. Her agony was palpable. He had done that to her.

He didn't want to hear about the other men. He didn't want to remember about the way her lips had been swollen after she'd kissed Vargas. He didn't want to relive the day he'd gone over to the Kiriakis Mansion with a new understanding of why Brady had behaved so bizarrely and why Nicole had appeared at such an opportune moment.

 _You've ruined me._

 _I'm ruined._

 _I love you._

"Back at you, Nicole," he murmured aloud. He glanced down at his denim prison gear and then at the bars on his window.

He'd left the church for her, and then he hadn't been able to have her. He'd gone a bit insane, with tragic consequences, and here he was. He'd been the good brother, the good twin, the good man; he'd become a reckless drunken killer.

It wasn't that it was her fault. He'd made his own choices.

But he was ruined.

And he loved her.

He stared at the second letter, which was actually the first letter, until one of his fellow convicts came running to remind him that he was late for school and he didn't want a reprimand, did he?

He grabbed the latest copy of the Spectator to use as the day's reading practice and sprinted to the classroom.

Only one student was awaiting Eric, and not one he knew well; his usual charges were working on the outside that day, shoveling the bright January snow. Eric didn't have the mental stamina to administer a practice test, so he simply had Jimmy work on reading aloud.

Jimmy stumbled through a few articles with a minimum of encouragement, so Eric kept a supportive look on his face and let his mind wander.

 _You of all people._

 _Only you._

It took him too long to notice that Jimmy had stopped reading. He wasn't being fair to Jimmy at all. He had no idea where Jimmy had been in his reading or what word Jimmy might not have known.

Then he saw that Jimmy had turned the page and was staring openly at the picture above Nicole's column. Eric hadn't even realized that this edition was from a day that featured Nicole's column.

"You want to read Nicole's column?" Eric asked, and his voice was hoarse even to his own ears. "Go ahead."

"Where did you get this paper?" asked Jimmy.

"It's from my hometown. A friend sends it to me."

"You from Salem?"

"Yeah. Spent half my life trying to deny it, but yeah."

Jimmy tapped one finger over the picture of Nicole. Eric was irrationally tempted to break Jimmy's hand. "You said her name like you know her?"

"I do." Eric decided that honesty was the best policy, especially when he'd been terribly disrespectful to Jimmy as far as giving proper attention to Jimmy's lesson went. "Have you ever heard me asking people at lunch to tell me what to say at the end of my letters to a woman?"

"Not her," said Jimmy. "Really? Her?"

"Do you know her?" Eric pushed.

"I done some stuff in Salem. She used to be on TV."

"That's right."

"She as pretty in person?"

Eric laughed. "Prettier."

"What's she want with you, then?"

"That," said Eric, "is a long story."

And he made Jimmy go back to reading. Nicole's column was about a dog that had rescued its owner from a fire; a feel-good puff piece that had no doubt made Nicole roll her eyes when Jennifer had suggested it.

When Jimmy was done, Eric dragged out the GED prep books and decided that he could pull himself together enough to go over the interminable practice tests after all. Jimmy deserved his best. Everyone did.

Eric waited until late that night, when his roommates were asleep, to whisper into his pillow the way Nicole said she had once done.

 _She loves me. She loves me._

* * *

Dear Nicole,

I love you, too.

I am now, and have always been, and will always be—

Yours,

Eric

* * *

Dear Eric,

I did everything but cut myself open and bleed all over the paper (I even bought nice paper!), and THAT'S your answer?

You're such a man.

—Nicole

P.S. At least you got the closing right, finally.

* * *

Dear Nicole,

I am a man, yes. In the past you have expressed your appreciation of that fact.

Conventional views of masculinity aside, I'm bad at this. You knew that already.

You, on the other hand, are good at it. Frighteningly good at it, even. A while ago you told me that you're confident in your reporting but not in your actual writing because Jennifer edits you heavily. I don't think you have anything to worry about. I think Jennifer edits you because editors edit and she wants the whole paper to have a particular feel, especially your column, because she knows that her subscribers have a particular interest in you.

Anyway, on the day I got your letters (the hate letter and the love letter arrived at the same time), I mostly stared at them like an idiot because I was too overwhelmed to do anything else.

The next day I wasn't any less of an idiot in love, but I didn't want you to not have a response, so I answered as much as I could.

It doesn't mean I love you any less.

I did notice your new stationary, by the way. It's hot. Just like you.

As for the closing, I didn't ask anyone else to choose it for me this time. That's the one I've wanted to use all along. Well, that one and this one:

Love,

Eric

* * *

Dear Eric,

You redeem yourself slightly, but I want a real love letter. I asked Abe whether love letters could be about cows and shampoo and he said yes, that love can be about everything around you and so can love letters.

I've decided that just because he's the mayor, that doesn't mean he knows everything.

Abe also told me that when you were a kid, your dad (except it was really John) used to use ice cream to get you to talk to him without your yappy sisters shouting over you. Since I'm not allowed to send ice cream through the mail, please accept the enclosed sketch of an ice cream cone as a substitute.

You're right about how to end a letter, though.

Love,

Nicole

* * *

Dear Nicole,

Abe has been telling you stories about my childhood? That's weird. And not fair. And weird. He better not have told you about the time I learned to ride a bike. Or about the time I was the ring bearer when John married my mom back then.

Also, I never realized until you told me just now that the ice cream thing was a calculated parenting move. You'd think I would have figured it out. I knew John did this thing where he'd take me out the day before my birthday and Sami the day after so we wouldn't always have to share and we always knew we were valued as individuals blah blah blah, but I always thought that when he got one of the aunts or grandmothers to take Sami and Carrie to get manicures and then took me for ice cream it was about them, not me.

I didn't think about it. I didn't let myself think about it. I would have ignored it all forever if Orpheus hadn't shown up and reminded me.

People talk about how resilient kids are, but I think you and I both know that that's something adults say to make themselves feel better because they can't protect kids from everything. When Mom "died," John was devastated and Carrie was devastated and got pushed into playing parent to Sami and me. That's how the adults got Carrie to keep going. They told her that John couldn't handle the twins without her.

So Sami and I knew it was our job to be the reason John and Carrie got up in the morning and that it wasn't really about how we felt. Just as well. We didn't know how we felt. It got to the point where we just understood that the other kids at school had mothers and we didn't.

John was dating a woman named Diana. Diana, you may be interested to know, owned the Spectator at the time. Sami and I started calling her "mom" even though neither she nor John ever told us to do it. We just needed someone to call mom.

Then Diana was out and Isabella was in, and do you know I don't actually know why John and Diana broke up? People don't share the details of why your life is being upended when you're a kid. Anyway, Carrie loved Diana— that was how things started between John and Diana, Diana pulled Carrie out of the river when Carrie got in over her head— so Sami and I took our cue and we loved her too.

Then came Isabella. If you've ever heard Brady or Victor talk about her, you know that she was a saint. Carrie hated her anyway. Anyway, John explained that Carrie was at an age where a girl needed to be with her mother, which really worried me because what were we going to do when Sami and I got to that age? We didn't have a mother, but I thought they would find somewhere to send her and I was worried about what it would be like with just John and me. Yes, Nicole, I know that you think I should have been looking forward to being an only child. I wasn't. It felt like I was gradually going to lose everyone and be alone and it was scary.

Except, as I said, Isabella was a saint and when John decided to marry her and asked Sami and me whether we were okay with her being our new mommy, that made everything feel stable for once. Sami wouldn't have to leave because our mother would be in Salem with us, and even Carrie started sounding more like she would be okay with coming home.

Now that I think of it, John definitely bought ice cream for Sami and me before he asked for our blessing to marry Isabella.

I'm not going to look at ice cream the same way anymore.

You know what happened next. Mom turned up alive (thanks for that five-year mindfuck, Orpheus) and even though things were awkward, they were kind of idyllic too.

Until Dad turned up. (I am not going to be okay with the DiMera family, ever. This is why. I wasn't okay with Sami marrying EJ and I wasn't okay with Brady marrying Kristen and honestly I'm worried about how deeply Belle is into this cleaning up the DiMera name thing she has going on.)

My Dad is a very good man. He would sacrifice his life and his happiness to protect everyone else. When he should have been ashamed of me for the accident, all he did was love me. I try to be just like him.

At the time, Dad was a stranger. John was the only father Sami and I had ever known, and he just handed us over. (I would never in a million years ask him why he didn't fight for us because that would be a terrible betrayal of Dad, but I'd really like to know.) That Christmas, John bought roller skates for me. I'd wanted them for a long time, and he'd always told me no, that I was too young. I was growing so fast at the time that I would have been able to wear them for about two weeks. (On the bright side, it was hilarious when it got to the point that I was a lot taller than Sami because I was growing like I was. It pissed her off so much.)

Don't you think I would rather have had the man who raised me than the roller skates?

Don't you think I would rather have had the ice cream?

Brady says that sometimes, when the fact that he's richer than God comes up. _Don't you think I would rather have had my mother than an inheritance?_

I don't ever compare my situation to his. He's right. Isabella was better than any fortune, and it sucks that he doesn't have any memories of her. I wish I could rip mine out of my head and give them to him.

But I think I understand a tiny bit more than he thinks I do.

There was some kind of crisis, because isn't there always with my family, and Dad sent Sami and me to Colorado. There was a boarding school just outside Boulder, where our maternal grandparents lived, and we asked to enroll. Sami was all hyped up about the academics, if you can believe it. Me? I just wanted to ditch our grandparents before they ditched us like our parents and John and Isabella had.

Sami did ask me if I wanted to join her when she ran away. I said no. If none of them wanted us, I wasn't going to go running after them and begging.

In retrospect, I know that everyone involved was a good person trying to do the right thing for all of the kids—Carrie and Sami and me, and later Brady and Belle. I do not doubt that everyone involved loved me. No one owes me any kind of apology for anything that happened. (Kristen used to taunt me with that. She got off on making me lose my temper and she knew exactly how to do it. She'd demand to know whether my mother apologized to Sami and me for cheating on our father. I'd always tell her that my mother owes me no apology, but if we're going to get technical, she did apologize. That just wasn't any of Kristen's business.)

When I finally came back to Salem, it didn't feel like coming home. Things looked smaller, or had changed. There were things that I half-remembered and that disconcerted me. I wasn't sure of anything.

Then I met you, and I was sure.

I always have been.

I saw you and I knew. There's no other way to explain it.

I used to panic and run away. I shut myself up in boarding school, or the fashion photography circuit, or the seminary. No one could leave me if I went to a place where I wasn't going to have a lasting relationship anyway.

I ran away from you that first time, too. You told that story about being diagnosed with cancer, and I thought that it was more than I could handle and I took off.

I ran away from you the second time after you shredded those papers. The Church was so solid, and I was afraid of losing that identity and that safety even though what I really wanted, all along, was you. I had a right to be mad, but I didn't have a right to punish you for month after month. I had a right to be afraid of rebuilding my life, but I didn't have a right to repurpose that fear as self-righteousness directed at you. You told me in your letter that you donated Serena's diamond money to the Horton Center. I don't know what the hell I was doing implying that there was anything wrong with you taking that money for any reason. I'm sorry, Nicole.

I know enough now that I will always wait for you.

This isn't a love letter. I know you want a real love letter and you'll get one. But this is a letter full of things I would never tell anyone else, and I know that you understand that that is another way of telling you that I love you.

I also know that from time to time you'll have to deal with things that aren't your fault because I am who I am. You shouldn't have to break out the ice cream to make me tell you what I'm thinking, but you probably will. I want you to know the depths of the crazy that is my family so that if I do something that seems like a criticism of you, you'll know that it's not something that's wrong with you. It's something that's been messed up in me for a long time because even with wonderful, well-intentioned parents and pseudo-parents, kids aren't as resilient as we pretend to ourselves that they are. You heard Orpheus brag about it at Brady's wedding. Maybe along the line you heard Stefano brag about it, too.

Theresa told Brady that she couldn't handle the amount of crazy that our extended family brings to the table.

I've laid it out for you because I already know that you can.

I promise you that I can handle anything that comes with you and your family, too.

I promise you that I'm never going to make you feel like I'm going to leave you or like you have to run.

Love,

Eric

* * *

Dear Eric,

Hmm. An improvement.

Love,

Nicole

P.S. See how it feels to get a note when you've written a soul-baring letter?

* * *

Dear Nicole,

Or maybe _you_ see how hard it is to answer one of those letters, and how anxious you are to tell the other person that everything's okay right away before your brain has caught up with everything you want to say?

Love,

Eric

* * *

Dear Eric,

Do you think your longstanding habit of drinking chocolate milk with teenagers when you're trying to keep them from careening into disasters is a derivative of John force-feeding you ice cream at emotional moments when you were a kid?

Love,

Nicole

P.S. Are your cows all right in the snow?

P.P.S. Remember that ad from when we were kids about how chocolate milk came from a chocolate cow in a chocolate field near a chocolate stream?

* * *

Dear Nicole,

1\. Probably.

2\. The cows appear to be fine. We humans, however, are getting sick of shoveling snow. It's spring. This should be over with. As soon as I buy you a writer's desk for our house with a picket fence, I'm buying myself a snowblower. A big one.

3\. Yes, I remember that ad! Sami and I used to walk around the house reciting it and it drove Carrie nuts.

Love,

Eric

* * *

Dear Eric,

I saw Carrie yesterday and I was going to see what would happen if I recited the ad about the chocolate cow for her.

But instead she grabbed me and told me that you are going to have a hearing in a few days, via videoconference since you're physically there but your case is still technically in the jurisdiction of the judges here. Or something like that. You're a special guest prisoner who only technically lives where you do? I don't know if this will get to you before the hearing, but I'm going to attend from this side.

I also asked Carrie why Diana and John broke up when you were a kid. It came up organically, I swear—she was talking about the Spectator and how much it has been a part of her life one way or another, and how she hopes that Jennifer and her crack staff (hi) will be able to save it. Anyway, turns out Diana accidentally shot John and was so horrified that she ran away.

Sounds silly if you ask me. Who would ever get scared and run away from someone they loved? (- sarcasm)

Love,

Nicole

* * *

 **Salem**

When Jennifer turned up in Nicole's office just as Nicole was getting ready to leave to attend the Salem half of Eric's hearing, Nicole concluded that Jennifer was going to demand that Nicole take on an emergency assignment right that second. She opened her mouth to tell Jennifer that she'd rather quit than miss Eric's hearing.

When had it come to that? Carrie had said that most likely the judge wouldn't even want to hear from Nicole, but that Nicole was welcome as far as Eric's family was concerned and that her support would be appreciated. Nicole had no idea what to expect. She simply knew that anything involving Eric was a priority above everything else.

That, at least, felt familiar.

"Are you all right, Nicole?" asked Jennifer.

"Yes. Why?"

"You looked angry. Have you changed your mind about going to Eric's hearing?"

"No."

"Then I'll walk over with you," said Jennifer. "Carrie and I are going to lunch when it finishes up. You can join us if you'd like."

Nicole couldn't discern whether Carrie had actually invited Jennifer to attend or whether Jennifer had just decided to insert herself into the situation when Carrie had mentioned it in passing. She determined that it didn't matter. Jennifer was on Eric's side, and that was enough.

They found the judge, the prosecutor, and Carrie in a back room of the courthouse that was a tangle of video-conferencing equipment and loose wires. The judge and the attorneys were hovering around a clerk who was trying in vain to bring the equipment to life.

"Not exactly the kind of set up Titan has," murmured Brady's voice in Nicole's ear. Nicole jumped in surprise; she hadn't heard Brady and Chloe come in.

"At least we know they aren't wasting taxpayer dollars on the shiniest toys," Nicole whispered back. "No scandal for Jennifer and me to write stories about."

Chloe half-smiled in response, and that was when Nicole noticed that she was holding Brady's hand.

 _About time,_ she thought to herself. She would save her bragging for later, though. This was…

Semi-consciously, Nicole clenched her jaw.

"Are you all right?" asked Chloe.

"Why does everyone keep asking me that?" demanded Nicole.

And when had she become the kind of person who had people around her who cared enough to ask? Not only that, but she'd been asked by two women whose boyfriends Nicole had once attempted to seduce.

She had been transported into bizarro-world. There was no other explanation. Nicole Walker now existed in an alternate universe in which she had functioning relationships with other women. She had no doubt been transported there by a disruption in the space-time continuum, or by God and that pesky sense of humor of his, or by…

"Eric," she whispered when the screen flashed suddenly to life.

She hadn't seen his face in more than six months. The previous autumn, she had tried, not for the first time or the last time, to tell him goodbye:

" _Incidental contact from now on. No more eating wedding cake in bed together, and definitely nothing else in bed together. Got it?"_

" _Understood."_

Their brains might have understood. Their hearts hadn't.

Inadvertently, she took two steps toward the screen and would have stumbled into the table had Brady not reached for her and guided her to sit in a chair instead.

She could feel Brady, Chloe, and Jennifer exchanging glances over her head as they arranged themselves around her. She didn't care. She was drinking in the sight of Eric.

He had a beard. She knew that most men in prison didn't bother to keep themselves clean-shaven, but it was a shock to see that Eric had made such a radical departure from his usual style.

Otherwise, the sight of him was reassuring. There were no bruises on his face. (He had told her that fights were exceedingly rare at the minimum-security facility, but she knew how well that could change in a hot second, and she knew how likely Eric was to lie to spare her peace of mind.) His eyes were serious but not clouded with pain.

On their side, the camera was pointed at the judge and the attorneys. Eric couldn't see her side of the table. He might not even know that they were there.

The judge spouted some legalese, and the prosecutor and Carrie replied in the same vein. There was some discussion of the unusual circumstances, and the three of them thanked each other for being so adaptable.

"And what about you, Mr. Brady?" asked the judge at last. "What are your feelings about your transfer away from Statesville?"

Nicole knew that she should listen, but she was mesmerized by Eric's voice. She let herself float on his voice and only partially comprehended that Eric was simply saying things he had said before: that he hadn't wanted special treatment, that he hadn't wanted to escape punishment, that he hadn't wanted to embarrass his family, but that he was grateful for the solution under his unusual circumstances.

The judge praised Eric for having contacted the police when he had observed Orpheus and Xander behaving strangely in prison and for turning himself over to the police once he escaped the truck in which he had been locked. Eric brushed off the praise, explaining that he had merely called his father and presented himself to his cousin.

Nicole contemplated smacking the Eric on the monitor upside his head for refusing to take credit for what he'd done.

The judge questioned Eric further about how he spent his time, whether he was sober, and whether he regretted the actions that had landed him in prison in the first place.

When Eric had answered, the judge turned abruptly to Carrie and asked her who had accompanied her to the hearing that day. Carrie introduced Brady, Chloe, Nicole, and Jennifer. "They were all directly affected by the accident, but they have all forgiven Eric and believe that he is remorseful and has a low risk of recidivism. They are aware that he has spent a year in prison without incident, and none of them have any objection if he is released on parole today."

Nicole gasped and let her purse slide from her lap to the floor with a thud.

 _Released on parole today?_ She'd had no idea that this hearing could possibly have that outcome. She'd assumed that Carrie would attempt to shorten Eric's sentence, but one year instead of five?

It wouldn't be the mildest punishment she'd ever heard of for the crime.

The judge was staring at her.

"Ms. Walker? You seem surprised by the counselor's characterization of your views."

"I'm not, Your Honor," said Nicole, forcing herself to look at the judge instead of Eric and gathering herself to sound collected. "Those are my views. Eric was reckless and stupid and his actions resulted in the death of a wonderful man. You've heard him say that he understands that. I believe him. I have forgiven him. Everyone has forgiven him. He's not going to put anyone in danger and I can't imagine how anyone is going to benefit from leaving him in prison. In spite of what he did, he is a very good man. He always was."

"And your fiance? Daniel Jonas?" prompted the judge.

"Was also a very good man who wouldn't disagree with anything I said today."

"And the State's view?" he asked the prosecutor, who replied that there was no real objection to shortening the sentence, but that shortening the sentence quite so much seemed excessive.

The judge nodded. "To be released in six months, for a total of eighteen months served, assuming continued good behavior."

Nicole's head spun with dizziness. She was only vaguely aware that Brady had grabbed one of her hands and Jennifer and grabbed the other.

 _Six months._

They agreed that they should go out to lunch to celebrate. Brady stayed behind to wait for Carrie, so Nicole walked with Jennifer and Chloe to the Blue Note, which was only sort of open for lunch. There was only one other patron in the room when they walked in, and when Nicole recognized Kate Roberts she almost turned around and walked out.

But backing away wasn't Nicole's style, and she certainly wouldn't give Kate the satisfaction.

Kate strolled over to them as soon as the waiter had poured their water and left them a wine list.

"I know what this is," said Kate by way of greeting. "Carrie's team of character witnesses just back from Eric Brady's hearing."

Sometimes Salem was too small of a town.

"What do you want, Kate?" asked Jennifer almost pleasantly.

"I want to know how the hearing went."

"To be released in six months," said Chloe, much less pleasantly.

Kate nodded. "Impressive. Carrie will be happy, and Austin will be very proud of her. She certainly did a better job than her sister Belle, didn't she?" Kate rolled her eyes. "Eric was lucky that Chad sent Belle overseas again when this came up and Carrie was left to handle it."

"Belle would have done a wonderful job if she'd been here," Chloe defended. "DiMera Enterprises is lucky to have her."

"Chad agrees with you, and that's all that matters. Anyway, congratulations. Congratulations are in order, correct?"

"I know I'm going to regret asking this, but what's that supposed to mean?" demanded Nicole.

"I mean that two years ago the celebrated photographer Eric Brady could have taken a picture of the three of you and captioned it 'Daniel Jonas' Harem.' Now you're congratulating yourselves for your role in releasing Daniel's killer. It's perfect, actually. I rather adore it."

"Shut up about Daniel!" snapped Chloe. "You just didn't like him because he chose someone younger and prettier over you."

"No, in fact I didn't like him because he seduced Lucas' wife and had the gall to announce that it was Lucas' own fault because Lucas had had a drinking problem and conquered those demons before he ever met you or Daniel." Kate's eyes swept over the three of them, unbothered by their glares. "This is a fitting end for a man who was only truly attracted to women when he saw them with someone else. His relationship with me began when he was passing the time while he tried to pry my granddaughter away from her college sweetheart. He wouldn't have been so fascinated with you, Chloe, if you hadn't been married to my son. As for you, Jennifer, well— poor Jack. And you, Nicole, he wanted you when you were pregnant with another man's baby, but then you were dirt on the bottom of his shoe once that baby died. You weren't on his radar again until he knew his 'best friend' wanted you. He interfered with your relationship with Eric to protect Eric from you, and then he swooped in on you."

"Maybe you should just stick to being grateful that Daniel saved your miserable life when you had cancer," suggested Nicole.

"I can be grateful for that and still be aware of what the man was," said Kate casually. "He certainly was a brilliant doctor, or no hospital would ever have put up with his habit of sleeping with all of his patients."

Carrie and Brady, along with Austin, chose that moment to make their entrance, and Kate swept over to congratulate Carrie and fuss over her eldest son.

"She made it all sound so dirty," whispered Chloe. "I mean, most of what she said was technically true, but…"

"She took it out of context," said Jennifer firmly. "And even to the extent that Daniel wasn't perfect, his imperfections didn't define him any more than that one horrible New Year's Eve defines Eric."

Nicole forced a smile and nodded along, then greeted Austin as he extricated himself from his mother's grip to say hello.

But her mind was still swimming.

 _You weren't on his radar again until he knew his "best friend" wanted you._

 _Six months._

The two engagement rings side by side in her drawer.

* * *

Dear Nicole,

Thank you for what you said at the hearing. I will always try to be worthy of it.

Love,

Eric

* * *

Dear Eric,

You don't have to try. You just are. You, as you, is enough. It always was.

I looked at the letter you sent me before Christmas. You wrote a line about how good boys don't spend Christmas in prison. You crossed it out hard, so of course I got a strong light and a magnifying glass and did whatever it took to read it.

I started to send you a smartass reply about how I never expected to be the kind of woman who wrote letters to a man in prison. I stopped because I knew you were struggling and probably wouldn't think it was funny.

I also stopped because it wasn't true. In my corner of the world, everyone knew someone in prison. I sort of expected to be in love with a man in prison at some point. You and Sami felt like the only kids in elementary school with a dead mother? I guarantee you that Brandon and Taylor and I never felt like the only kids with a father in the slammer.

It's not that big a deal.

You, as you, is enough. It always was.

Love,

Nicole

* * *

Dear Nicole,

Would you believe me if I said the same thing to you?

Because I do.

You. Then, now, and always. Everything else is just details.

Love,

Eric

P.S. Except the picket fence. We're getting the picket fence. That's not a detail.

P.P.S. Not really. If you want to live in a loft or a penthouse or a riverboat or a mansion or a treehouse, that's fine. But you would have to pay for the mansion by yourself because I'm never going to have that much money.

* * *

Dear Eric,

When I was young and stupid, I didn't believe you when you said that to me. I underestimated how hard you are to shock. I was so worried about my own childhood ghosts that I didn't think that much about yours. I was sure that they couldn't be bad, after all, with you being the son of a cop and a doctor and so very, very pretty.

Speaking of the pretty. If you want a prison beard, I'm not going to stop you. I can't see you from here anyway. But the minute you get out of there, you are shaving.

I will hold you down and shave you myself if it becomes necessary.

Love,

Nicole

* * *

Dear Nicole,

Don't tease me with the idea of a good time!

Sorry. I got as far as the part where you were going to hold me down, and I didn't notice what else you said you were going to do to me. Don't worry, I have a very good imagination.

Love,

Eric

* * *

Dear Eric,

Ha.

Okay, getting rid of the beard might not be the first thing I do after I pin you down.

Or the second, or the third, or even the fourth.

It'll be happening in the first day, though.

Be prepared.

Love,

Nicole

* * *

Dear Nicole,

I am nothing but prepared.

If anything, I'm overly prepared.

Love,

Eric

* * *

Dear Eric,

Are you saying that I'll be moving on to priority number five more quickly than I anticipated?

That's not what a girl likes to hear, Eric!

Love,

Nicole

* * *

Dear Nicole,

You had no complaints the first time.

You had no complaints after the priesthood.

You will have no complaints this time.

Love,

Eric

* * *

Dear Eric,

That, on the other hand, is exactly what a girl likes to hear!

It goes without saying, but I will say anyway, that you will also have no complaints.

Love,

Nicole

P.S. If you tell me what you were dreaming that night in your hospital room, I'll make it happen.

* * *

Dear Nicole,

I'm starting to think I may not live to see you again.

Love,

Eric

* * *

Dear Eric,

Making things hard for you, am I?

I didn't mean to.

Love,

Nicole

* * *

Dear Nicole,

Somehow I don't think that's a likely story.

Don't print it in the Spectator.

Love,

Eric

* * *

Dear Eric,

The Spectator's circulation problems would be fixed if I did print that.

Don't worry, though. I'll let you bury everything you have in…

the business section or something. No one reads that part.

Love,

Nicole

* * *

Dear Nicole,

Any chance of you coming out here to meet me in October?

The plane ride from here to Salem feels a few hours too long to wait to see you again.

Love,

Eric

* * *

Dear Eric,

Tickets and hotel room are already booked, Honey.

I have the rest of my life to share you with your family.

I think one week of just you and me is fair.

If I can still walk at the end of it, I'll consider escorting you back to Salem.

Love,

Nicole

* * *

Dear Nicole,

As we start to make concrete plans to see each other again rather than indulging in pie-in-the-sky fantasies about picket fences, it occurs to me that I will miss our letters.

I want the real thing, of course. I want you in my arms every night. But for almost a year now, your letters have given me hope and faith and something to hold onto.

Thank you for your persistence, and your patience, and your forgiveness, and your passion, and your love.

I love you.

The old saying goes that a picture is worth a thousand words. I think it must be more. I know, I'm biased. Still, I wish I could take a picture to show you how I feel instead of sitting here trying to find the words.

If I could take a picture of you, it would be a full-length shot because I love every part of you.

You'd be wearing those high high heels that make you just a little tiny bit taller than I am, because I love that you're confident enough to wear them. You wouldn't believe how many models I used to photograph who would hunch their shoulders or slouch because they believed that it wasn't all right to be taller than men even though their height was part of the reason they were able to model professionally. You own it.

Or maybe you'd be barefoot like you were on the beach when we did the New Faces campaign for Titan. I remember the exact minute that you forgot that there was a camera between us and you just laughed. I love your laugh. I love all of your laughs: the victorious laugh when you've outwitted someone who deserves it, the mild laugh when you're with someone you like and you're feeling pleasant, that rare giggle that I think I heard you break out all of one time with Chloe, the warm laugh that's mostly for small children, the throaty laugh that you sometimes laugh when we kiss, but most of all that pure carefree laugh. When I hear you laugh like that I know that for that second there is nothing separating us and nothing to worry about. I want you to be able to laugh like that more often. I want you to laugh every day that we are together, hopefully more often with me than at me.

You'd be wearing a dress that shows your legs— not because your legs are beautiful, although they are, but because your legs have carried you through all of the challenges in your life and brought you to this moment. You've come running to my rescue more than once. In one of your earlier letters, you told me that I could never have been angry with you if I'd known what it did to you to see me in that hotel room in Chicago. I still don't have clear memories of that day, which is for the best in many ways. What I know, though, is that you would have done anything, and did do a lot of things, to save me. When I needed you most, you got yourself to my side. I'm grateful and I'm blessed and I'm in awe of your ingenuity and your tenacity. And I love you.

I think the dress is blue. Blue like your eyes and the Pacific Ocean and the sky that we're both under even when we're apart.

The dress is sleeveless because I want to see your shoulders. Do you know that you square them when you've resolved to do something? It's how I know when I've lost an argument. It's also how I know that you will be all right because you refuse to be otherwise. We might have come through the years having been changed, but we're here because giving up isn't something you do.

I think you're posed with your hand reaching out, for no other reason than that I like to hold your hand.

A few months ago I was working with another one of the inmates on GED prep by having him read the Spectator. He recognized you from television. He asked whether I knew you, and when I told him yes, asked what someone as beautiful as you wanted with me. I told him it was a long story and made him get back to work. Writing this letter, I almost start to wonder what someone as wonderful with you wants with me myself— but then I decide to just live in the moment and be glad that you do want me.

Since I suddenly find myself inside the six-month mark, I suddenly find myself allowed to leave during the day for work. "Work" is the same. More tutoring, this time for people who aren't incarcerated, often kids close to Claire and Theo's age.

The first time I signed out and walked off the premises, my whole body started shaking because it felt like I was doing something bad. I haven't been that afraid since last year when I saw Orpheus taking aim at you.

I must admit that I imagined holding your hand. Just the thought of you makes me stronger and better.

For the expression on your face, well, I'm going to tell you the stupidest jokes that I know because your heart and your kindness shine through when you're being indulgent. So does your intelligence and your fire. I've told you before how lucky Salem is to have you on the case for the Spectator.

You're going to be looking straight into the camera and straight at me. You've always done that. You saw me when everyone else saw the photographer or the good twin or the cop's son or the priest or the drunken criminal.

I love you. I want you to be content and happy and at peace, alive and interested and challenged, protected and secure and confident. I will do everything in my power to make sure that's always true.

And that's just about a thousand words.

Love,

Eric

P.S. This one was the love letter. You could tell that without me explaining, right?

* * *

Dear Eric,

Worth the wait.

Very much worth the wait.

I don't mean the wait for the love letter, or the wait for you to get out of there, although those are true, too.

I mean the wait since the day you walked into the Java Cafe.

I love you.

I will see you next month.

And nothing is ever going to get in our way again.

Love,

Nicole

* * *

 **Shirley Correctional Institution**

It didn't escape Eric's notice that Jimmy began to watch him soon after their first discussion about their respective ties to Salem in general and Nicole in particular. The attention didn't have the threatening edge that Xander's attention had had in Statesville, but it was something that unnerved Eric all the same.

Two or three times, Eric tried to engage Jimmy in more conversation about Salem. Jimmy squirmed and ducked his head and managed to stay as far away from Eric as possible.

Guilt. Eric knew guilt when he saw it.

Eric tried to be as gentle and warm and non-threatening as possible, then, when Jimmy approached him one morning just before Eric checked out for his day's work. (Planting bulbs that would flower next spring in the town park, not a task he minded at all.)

"I wanted to thank you," said Jimmy. "You helped with my reading a lot, and I got it. I passed the test."

"That's great!" Eric didn't have to fake his delight. He loved it when the prison system managed to rehabilitate instead of punish. "I didn't do anything. It was all you."

Jimmy shook his head with an unreadable expression on his face. "Your girl. Nicole. She had a baby die, right?"

Eric called on all of his training to keep himself looking neutral and compassionate. Nicole's traumas were common knowledge among people who knew her even a little bit, but he was sure Nicole didn't know Jimmy. He was equally sure that Jimmy knew Nicole, and not just from television.

"She lost two children," said Eric in his best priestly voice. "A girl back in 2009, and a boy a few years later."

"Don't know nothing about the girl," Jimmy muttered. "But the little boy. Look, the DiMeras are dangerous and they do shit. The old man is gone now, but he was obsessed with his children and grandchildren."

"When my sister and I were babies, he had us kidnapped to replace his daughter who died," said Eric. "I know how dangerous he was. How dangerous some of his people might still be." He took a guess that he knew where this was heading. He knew a confession when he heard one, after all. "I would never do or say anything that would give them a reason to attack someone else."

It might have been the assurance Jimmy was looking for, or it might not have been. The guard was shouting at Eric to hurry unless he wanted to lose his assignment for the day and stay inside his cell.

Jimmy's words were low and rushed. "She was drugged so she'd think the baby died inside of her. Took the baby, dumped it on a drug addict. Gave her enough coke so she'd say he was hers. Promised her more every time she refused to give up her rights and let the kid be adopted until—"

" _Brady_!"

Eric was about to shout that he wasn't coming after all when Jimmy vanished.

It was a beautiful early autumn day, and Eric ought to have been counting his blessings that he was outside making himself useful instead of sitting in a cell in Statesville awaiting almost four more years of the same. Instead, he frantically planted as quickly as he could in the hopes of returning early and cornering Jimmy.

He knew how Stefano had operated. He knew that Jimmy must have been in over his head almost immediately, alone and desperate and without the skills he needed to make his way without help. He knew that it must have taken an extraordinary amount of courage for Jimmy to tell him as much as he had. He didn't blame Jimmy.

But, damn it, he was going to make Jimmy tell him more by any means necessary.

And then he was going to… what, exactly? His mail and phone calls were monitored. He couldn't send a private message to his family or to Nicole to start looking for the child.

Never mind that anything could have happened to that little boy in the past five years. Bouncing between a drug addict paid to keep him and the foster care system was not an auspicious beginning.

What if he told Nicole that her son had been born alive after all, only for her to learn that he had died of neglect anyway?

What if Jimmy had been lying?

His gut screamed at him that Jimmy had been telling the truth.

When he made it back to the prison, he was permitted to sign in but promptly cuffed and locked into his cell.

"What happened?" he demanded of his sullen-looking cellmates.

"Jimmy flipped out and started punching people. It was like he was _trying_ to get himself sent back to maximum security."

"Not just maximum security. Solitary," added another. "He ain't going to be talking to anyone for a year, let alone getting out when he was supposed to."

 _Shit_.

For all that Stefano had been an evil genius, he had tended to repeat a handful of tricks over and over again.

Naturally Stefano would have wanted to punish Nicole for her interference with his granddaughter Sydney— or perhaps just for getting caught switching the living grandchild for the dead.

Once Stefano had wanted to punish Eric's Uncle Bo. Bo and Billie had been convinced that their daughter had died before her birth.

Eric didn't know his cousin Chelsea, but he had an address for her and a message she had sent him more than a year before. He dug it out of the box where he kept letters from Nicole and his family and reread it:

 _Dear Eric,_

 _We've never met, but I'm going to guess that you know me by reputation. My name is Chelsea and I'm your cousin._

 _A few weeks ago, Sami contacted me and asked me what I wish someone had said to me when I killed my brother Zack by driving recklessly._

 _We had a conversation and we decided that I should write to you myself._

 _This is my story. I know you've heard parts of it, but you haven't heard it from me, so I'm going to give you a frame of reference._

 _I was an angry teenager who thought no one's life had ever been as bad as mine, and I wanted a car. I worked everyone else so hard that they all indulged me. Patrick was the one who made sure I won a car in a dance contest. Max was the one who took the blame when I was pulled over for speeding. And my dad was the one who wrote me a temporary license (I had deservedly lost mine) and let me borrow his truck (because of course I had destroyed my car)._

 _It was New Year's Eve, and I wanted to go out with Abby Deveraux, who was my very best friend in the way that only teenage girls can have very best friends._

 _I called her while I was driving._

 _I looked down at the phone while I was driving._

 _I knew better. I did it anyway._

 _I felt a bump. A little tiny bump, but enough to make me pull over, like I should have done when I took out my phone, and call my dad. He told me I had probably hit patch of ice._

 _That didn't feel right to me. I told Max that maybe I had hit a dog. Max blew it off and said that even if I had, the person at fault was whoever had let the animal out at night._

 _I remember what I said when my dad confronted me._

 _ **"I wouldn't have done that to Zack."**_

 _As if it mattered that I wouldn't have done it on purpose. As if it mattered that it wouldn't have happened if I had bothered to acknowledge that cars are dangerous and there are reasons there are laws about things like speeding and texting and drinking while driving._

 _I know you wouldn't have done what you did to Daniel— not to anyone, but especially not to Daniel._

 _I know you know that that doesn't make him any less dead._

 _You probably also know that this will color everything going forward in your life. When something bad happens to you, you wonder if God is punishing you because of what you did to him. When you do something to help someone else, you feel him beside you and wish he were there and hope you made him proud._

 _I'm sure you also know that you do have to live to make him proud from now on instead of wallowing in self pity. It's part of the deal. I work in a rehab facility. I've done occupational therapy for autistic kids and physical therapy for people who were injured in accidents. That's a better tribute to Zack than throwing myself off a bridge would have been. Nothing was going to bring him back. It sucks, doesn't it?_

 _I hope you also know that things will be okay, and that you can live around this pain like you can live around any other pain that you will never get over. That's okay, too. It's okay if you fall in love, even though he can't. (I have.) It's okay if you laugh, even though he can't. (I do.) It's okay to love the people he loved and let them love you. I'm officially giving you permission because my dad and Hope and Shawn and Ciara all gave it to me._

 _You don't have to answer. I don't expect an answer, but I want you to feel free to contact me if there's ever anything I can do to help you. Zack would offer if he could._

— _Chelsea_

Eric sent Chelsea a quick letter asking to meet her in person as soon as possible after his release.

Chelsea answered by return mail that she would be in Boston for a conference the next week and could meet him in person then if the rules allowed for it.

Since he was now permitted to sign himself out almost on a whim, the rules did allow for it, and they arranged to meet at a coffee shop a mile from the prison.

Although they had never met before, he knew her at once when he saw her. She looked like both of her parents, but especially her mother.

They made some small talk and she explained that she worked in an exclusive rehab facility outside Washington DC. Some of her patients, she explained acidly, "did exactly what you did but are too rich to accept the consequences." But she loved most of her patients, and she loved most of her colleagues, and the job paid well, she explained, before asking why he'd wanted to see her.

"I wanted to ask you what you could tell me about the way Stefano faked your death when you were a baby and how you found your real parents."

Her eyes widened. "I don't know what I expected you to say, but it wasn't that."

"I also wanted to thank you for the letter you wrote me last year."

Chelsea shrugged. "Yeah, I expected you to say something more like that. And you're welcome." She shook her head. "I didn't find my real parents. They found me. Stefano decided it was time to start teasing them— or Andre did— and they tracked me down."

"But you already knew them," prompted Eric. At least, that was how he had heard the story. "That's the way Stefano did things. I'm sure he loved having you right under Bo and Billie's noses."

"Probably." Chelsea sighed. "I remember the first time I met my mom. Billie. I was over at Abby's house, and Billie was there hanging out with Jennifer. Abby or Jennifer introduced us— I'm not even sure which one— and I remember Bille saying that Chelsea had always been one of her favorite names." Chelsea scoffed. "I'm sure Stefano knew it somehow. That was part of the game, too, giving me a name she would have thought about but didn't give me. She named me Georgia. They almost sound the same, you know? _Chel-sea. Geor-gia._ When my adoptive parents died, Billie was there and she promised my mom she would look out for me. I'm sure Stefano arranged all of that, too, somehow."

"Were your adoptive parents good to you?"

"Yeah." Chelsea nodded. "But in retrospect, I always knew something was off."

"Do you wish you had known the truth sooner? What if Bo and Billie had found you when you were five instead of when you were fifteen?"

"I wish I'd been able to ask the Bensons— my adoptive parents— why they did what they did. How much they knew. I wish I'd had more time with my biological family. But I don't really regret the childhood I had, either. Does that make sense?"

"It does." But Chelsea had been raised by people who were capable of raising a child. If Jimmy was right, that wasn't the case for Nicole's son at all. "Why are you asking me this?"

Eric decided to take a leap of faith that his cousin could be trusted after the life she had lived. He told her everything Jimmy had said.

"You need to talk to my mom. Or I'll talk to her."

"Nothing that can be traced!" Eric glanced around nervously. "Even if Stefano's really dead this time, there's Andre, and if your phone has been bugged or—"

Chelsea held up her hand to stave him off. "My dad and my mom both worked with the ISA. I know how to handle things."

"And don't tell anyone else?"

"My lips are sealed." Chelsea stood up to leave, then turned back. "What was Nicole going to name her son?"

"Daniel," whispered Eric.

"Daniel," Chelsea whispered back.

* * *

Dear Nicole,

Please don't be mad. At least, please hear me out before you get mad.

I love you more than words can say and I want to be with you more than I have ever wanted anything in my life. The plans that we've talked about recently are exactly what I want if you'll still have me and them.

Because I love you so much, I want to put off our reunion for a few weeks. Because I love you so much, I can't tell you why. All I can do is promise that my reasons are good.

Please don't come and meet me when I get out. I will be back in Salem in no time, and I promise you that I will make it up to you in any way that you want.

Love,

Eric

* * *

Dear Eric,

Well, as long as you asked nicely I guess I won't get mad! That's how it works, is it?

Are you out of your mind?!

No. The answer is no. No, I will not sit at home in Salem and wait for you to maybe show up when the mood strikes you. I did that for twelve years. I will not wait for you to get your head on straight or find yourself or decide whether the fact that the Church thinks I'm damaged goods means you should never touch me or whether you can deign to forgive me for the grievous sin of ripping up a piece of paper while you offer absolution to rapists and murderers.

If you are backing out now, you owe me a fucking explanation.

Your lack of trust in me makes me want to slap that stupid beard off your face.

I was so pissed off when I got your letter that I showed it to Brady, and he thinks I'm right. Okay, he's a little more generous than I am and was worried that maybe you were in some kind of trouble and wanted to protect me. I told him that that wasn't it, that you're just being superior and self-righteous and probably I spelled a word wrong in my last letter so you've decided to stop speaking to me for a year to make sure I've been properly penitent. He implied that I might be over-reacting, which is obviously stupid, and then he said that if I decide not to go he will go in my place and beat the shit out of you. Well, what he said was he would find out what's going on. But we both know that if Brady came to see you, what he'd find out is that you're just being holier-than-thou again, and hopefully then he'd beat the shit out of you.

Speaking of your family, do you know what your mother said to me a few days ago? She said that she knew that you planned to have a vacation with me before you came home and that she would have done the same thing if she'd been in our places. THE SAINTED DR. MARLENA EVANS GAVE ME HER BLESSING TO TAKE A POST-PRISON HONEYMOON WITH HER FAVORITE CHILD!

It didn't stop there, either. She gave me your phone and some other things she wanted you to have right away and said she trusted me to make sure you got them. She even asked where we were planning to stay, and when I told her— hotel right by where you are, I think you stayed there for one night before you checked yourself into prison— she told me that we should drive out to the coast instead and stay at a hotel on the beach. It's only a couple of hours, she said, and she and John stayed there once on the way to Maine to see Belle when she lived there.

Do you have any idea how awkward this was?

Do you have any idea how much I didn't care, because I was going to see YOU, and I FINALLY have your family's approval, and our timing is FINALLY right, and we were FINALLY going to get our happily ever after?

I have always loved you more than you loved me. You just got carried away with not being able to have me that one time, correct? And now that you think you'll have to see me face to face, and not be pen pals, you're changing your mind like you always do. You're thinking you can't trust me. You're thinking you can do better.

I don't know why I fell for it.

I love you. There's no taking that back now. Not from my end. I'm not you.

I will be there the day you are released.

You do not have to get in the car with me and drive to the hotel by the beach with me.

But you can have the nerve to dump me to my face, and to do it all at once instead of in stages.

Love Always,

Nicole

* * *

Dear Nicole,

So that didn't go well.

I'm sorry.

I love you.

I am not dumping you, in stages or in any other way.

I had to ask what I asked. I see now that it was too much. I'm very, very afraid that the alternative is also too much. That's one reason I can't explain why I asked you not to come.

If Brady knew the whole story, which he doesn't because it's not something I can put in writing, he would almost certainly agree with me. I'm tempted to ask you to send Brady, because if he hears what I have to say and tells you that everything is all right, you might believe him. Since you're so concerned about me lying, I won't lie and say it doesn't hurt that I know you trust him more than you trust me. I know where you're coming from, though. I swear to you, we will get to a place where you won't ever doubt that I'll be beside you for as long as you want me there.

Come, then, if you still want to. We will go to the beach and I will tell you my secret. Between now and then I'll pray that it won't make you want to dump me, or hurt you more than my letter did. Maybe we will get to the point where we can talk about those other things that are bothering you, too.

I love you, Nicole. I do not want to hurt you.

Love,

Eric

P.S. Sorry about my mom. I had no idea she was going to do that. I know it isn't fair that you have to navigate my family and I don't have to navigate yours, unless you've also shown my letter to Brandon and he wants to beat me up too. I've fought Brady before. I can take him. Brandon… I saw him box once. If I wanted to treat you badly, I still wouldn't do it out of sheer cowardice and self-preservation.

P.P.S. I'm not Mom's favorite. Belle is.

* * *

Dear Eric,

I showed your last letter to Brady, too. He doesn't necessarily agree that you can take him, but says it is one of his life goals never to hit you again so it doesn't matter anyway. He loves you and so do I.

Brady is now firmly convinced that he should come with me to meet you. I told him no, repeatedly. He said that he would bring Chloe and they would stay on the other side of town for the whole week and not expect to see us until the flight home, if everything goes well. I had to beg Chloe to help me talk him out of it, and he still doesn't like the idea very much. He does want me to call the minute I think either one of us needs him and he said that he would write you the same thing himself.

As for your mom, don't worry. It wasn't really that awkward. I've had Kate Roberts for a mother-in-law, you know, so this is nothing compared to that. Did I ever tell you that Kate liked having me for a daughter-in-law so much that she wanted to do it again? Offered to pay me to marry Austin to keep him away from Sami and me away from Victor. I know how messed up it is that that is a thing that happened. I know how messed up it is that I married Victor. Right after I told Kate that no, I wouldn't be marrying Austin, I went with Victor on a picnic at the edge of a cliff and I honestly planned to push him off of it and be rid of him. Klutz that I am, I almost fell myself and when he saved me, I changed my mind.

You asked about Brandon. Brandon hated what I was doing back then. He said I was selling myself the same way our father sold me. He asked whether I loved Victor and I said I wasn't capable of love but that I admired Victor and that that was enough. He said it wasn't and that I deserved better. So Brandon is all for you and me. He knows I love you. That's what he wants for me.

He was right back then, but I didn't listen and I followed Victor around until one day I got in between him and a hit man. Yes, with a little help from your less-charming twin, who pushed me into the bullet in her rush to save her own neck.

"You'll never conceive," they told me when I woke up from the coma, and at the time I only sort of cared because I thought it meant maybe Victor wouldn't want me.

Fast forward a decade, and I cared.

Two miracle babies, and I lost them both, my Sydney Ann whose name I gave to another beautiful little girl and my Daniel Raphael. Nothing you have to say to me can be worse than that. You worry too much.

See you soon.

Love,

Nicole

* * *

 _ **To be continued...**_


	3. Search

**One**.

The last thing Nicole did before she left Salem was unlock the dresser drawer where the two engagement rings had sat side by side for a year. They sparkled at her in perverse unison.

She wrapped Eric's ring in a soft cloth for safekeeping and tucked it into a zippered pocket inside her purse. It was possible that she and Eric would have an explosive argument when they saw each other and that the ring would once again be rendered useless. It was far more likely that whatever Eric's deep dark secret might be, it was something that was only a problem in Eric-world rather than the real world. Nicole wasn't usually an optimist, but something in Eric seemed to bring it out in her.

She swallowed hard as she held Daniel's ring in her palm for the last time. It wouldn't have been a bad life— Daniel, the brilliant doctor with the beautiful son, and Nicole in a position of respect-by-association where she would never be threatened or challenged or hurt.

She kissed the ring. "I'm so sorry," she whispered, and tucked it in a protective bag in its turn. The bag went into a padded envelope addressed to the donations department of Doctors Without Borders. She'd included no identifying information, just a note that her late fiancé had been a doctor and he would have wanted the ring put to good use now that it was no longer on her finger.

The ring went into the mail, and Nicole got on a plane to New England.

* * *

Eric had asked her to wait for him at a coffee shop about a mile from the prison rather than coming to meet him at the prison itself. She thought that she understood that. She thought that she would have felt the same way if Eric had come to pick her up when she'd been released from Statesville.

It was too cold, really, to wear a sleeveless blue dress, and she couldn't even drive in the mile-high heels, but she would never have worn anything else.

Planning things down to the slightest detail wasn't Nicole's normal m.o. Nonetheless, as the minutes ticked by (she wasn't mad at Eric for being late, not yet, the red tape that came with a release being what it was), she found herself composing a mental list of possible greetings.

 _Come here often?_

 _What's a nice boy like you doing in a dirty mind like mine?_

 _Of all the gin joints in all the the towns in all the world…_

 _Hi, stranger._

 _Hi, handsome._

 _Yeah, get rid of that beard._

 _We better leave right away. You're making all the other men look bad._

 _I'm never letting you out of my sight again._

Then he opened the door. She knew it was him a split second before she saw him; she could tell by the way his shadow moved across the window at the front of the store.

All of her words, clever and otherwise, deserted her just like they'd done when he'd first walked into the Java Cafe half her life ago.

She rose from her table, her eyes locked on his, as he crossed the room to her. He mumbled her name, roughly, and she covered his lips with hers. His soft lips in contrast with the prickly beard sent jolts of electricity through every inch of her body, and when he pulled away she almost protested before she remembered that they were in public.

"Is there anything you need before we go?" she asked, choosing practical over playful or seductive.

"No. Let's get out of here."

She nodded and threw two twenty dollar bills on her table. If they she was going to have a nice day, her waitress deserved one, too.

Nicole tossed her heels in the backseat of the rental car beside the duffel bag Eric had had slung over his shoulder and drove barefoot.

"You wore the blue dress," he said quietly as she set the GPS and pulled out of the parking lot.

There hadn't ever been any chance that he wouldn't notice. "I did. And it wasn't easy, either," she said, and before she knew what she was doing she was nervously explaining in excruciating detail how hard she had looked to find a dress like the one he had described in his letter. Long moments passed before she realized that Eric wasn't saying anything in response to her babbling. He wasn't even reacting. He was just staring at her.

"You're going to jump out of this car because you don't trust me with your deep dark secret, aren't you?" she demanded.

"No," said Eric. "I was going to ask if I could kiss you at the red lights."

It was innocent and corny and completely Eric. "Just as soon as you reprogram the GPS to find the route to the hotel that has the most traffic lights," she told him.

He laughed, and he kissed her.

Before they reached the highway, they managed seven kisses each one more promising and passionate than the last. Nicole shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Her breath came fast and shallow.

Stupid Marlena and her stupid suggestion about romantic hotels and how much Eric would like waking up to see the sun rise over the ocean on his first day of freedom. Nicole should have stuck with her own instincts and gone with close. Close was highly under-rated, and anyway she was going to make sure Eric was too exhausted to be able to get out of bed to see the sunrise.

When they pulled off the highway and onto the winding road that led to the hotel, Nicole let her hand drift to the inside of Eric's thigh and was rewarded with a sharp intake of breath. He waited until she was trying to park to reciprocate, his fingers teasing at the hem of her dress before sliding under it to discover that she had decided against underwear of any kind.

Her hand shook as she reached for the room key— an actual old-fashioned key with the number 21 painted on the keyring. She pointed at the wooden staircase that ran along the outside of the building. "Upstairs. Now," she ordered.

Eric didn't need to be told twice. He had her hand in his, and before they managed to get the door open she was tugging at his clothes.

She'd taken appropriate romantic steps. She'd put rose petals on the bed and a bottle of sparkling cider in the ice bucket.

She didn't want Eric to notice or care or spread her out on the bed and tell her how beautiful she was. She wanted her dress in a tangled pile on the floor and his mouth on her neck and she wanted him to _put it in already_ and rid her of the achy empty feeling.

"I love you," he murmured as he obeyed her commands.

"Love you, too," she managed as she wrapped her legs around him and let sensations take over.

 _ **Two.**_

The first round of lovemaking was frantic and desperate with both of them halfway to completion before they'd managed to get the hotel room door open.

The second round of lovemaking was slower and sweeter and more reverent, and all in all what Eric had intended right up until the minute when Nicole had actually touched him.

The third round of lovemaking was silly and unplanned and involved the shower and the bottle of sparkling cider and a lot of laughter.

Eric smiled to himself when he stepped out of the bathroom, his skin mostly dry, his hair damp but clean thanks to Nicole's ministrations, and took a good look at the carnage in the bedroom for the first time. Their clothing was scattered across the floor among the rose petals. The bed was rumpled within an inch of its life and he had to look hard to find out exactly what had happened to the pillows. He put the pillows back where they belonged and slung Nicole's blue dress over the back of a chair. He was reaching for his own pants when Nicole's voice called out from behind him. "Don't. Not yet."

He looked at her questioningly.

"I just want to see you for a minute," she said.

He had nothing she hadn't seen, touched, and kissed repeatedly within the past several hours, but he didn't object as she studied him. It gave him a chance to study her, too, naked and beautiful and perfect. When Nicole shivered slightly—the room, meant for the summer tourist season, was cool from the autumn air outside—Eric guided her back to the bed and pulled her into his arms. She sighed against him and buried her face in his shoulder.

It occurred to him that he had absolutely no idea what she was thinking.

"I should have asked you this when I first saw you," he confessed against her half-dried hair, "but how are you?"

She laughed shakily. "Good. You?"

"The same." For one thing, he was well and truly sexually sated for the first time in… well, he didn't like to think about how long. "Better than good, thanks to you."

"I thought it was one of my better performances." Her voice was still muffled against him.

"No one has ever put rose petals on a bed for me before," he said.

"I apologize on behalf of womankind," she replied, and he couldn't see her face but he was sure that she wasn't joking as much as she pretended that she was.

"Nicole," he said firmly, shifting so that he was holding her more tightly but that she would have to move her head. "Look at me, please."

There were tears in her eyes, and that made him feel like an asshole. "I'm not upset, I promise," said Nicole as one tear splashed onto her cheek.

"You can see why I might be concerned that that's not the case," said Eric. "If something happened that you didn't like, or I didn't do something that you wanted me to—"

"I always forget how big the emotional kick is with you. It's different when you're in love. That's all."

He squelched the urge to point out that she had been in love with Daniel and ask whether being with him had felt like a betrayal even after everything they had discussed for the past year. In situations like these, it was better to be silent and wait for Nicole to fill the empty space with words.

"The last time," she said at last. "The last time we were like this, you really didn't want to be with me."

Of everything Nicole could have said, that would have been Eric's last guess. "Nicole, there has never been a time when I didn't want to be with you since I met you, and that includes the time when I was a priest."

"You said that you didn't believe in sex before marriage. We went through all— remember how furious you were when I poured wine on your shirt to get you to take it off? You only made love to me when I was trying to tell you about what I'd done with those documents because I was sad and you felt sorry for me."

"Not true," Eric corrected.

"When Serena showed up, you didn't have any rules for her. All of a sudden, no issues with premarital sex. You just whipped out the elephant." Eric laughed at the unexpected euphemism, and Nicole rubbed her hand against his side to assure him that the laughter was all right. "I've never been able to get my mind around why it was okay with her and not with me," she completed.

"It wasn't about you. At least, not in the way that you think."

"Who was it about?"

"Me. Me and God."

"Why didn't God tell you that you had to be married to Serena before acted like you loved her?"

Eric sat up slightly in surprise but was careful not to let go of Nicole. "Do you seriously believe that the only way to show someone that you love them is sex?"

"No. But I think that you do. Sort of. And you don't even know you do."

"I can't wait to hear this one."

"When we broke up the first time and you left Salem—"

"We were broken up long before I left Salem."

"You didn't leave Salem because you were afraid that we were going to have lunch together or watch a movie or talk about our messed up childhoods. You didn't leave Salem because I was messing with Greta's mind by pretending to be her friend. You left because we slept together. Yeah, I lied to get you to do it, but that's not the point. If Jennifer called you right now and said that she had cancer, that wouldn't make you jump into bed with her. You did what you did with me because you wanted to, and that scared you so much that you stayed away from me for twelve years."

"It drove home that I couldn't get you out of my system while we were living in the same town."

"When nothing else did. Because sex isn't just a thing you do for fun. It's important and symbolic to you. You're perfectly capable of loving a woman and not loving her enough to be with her in every way. For a lot of men, it's the reverse. Lots of sex without love. That's what's normal for me, too, and that's why sometimes I'm overwhelmed with you, because I love you. But for you, sex always means love at a whole different level. It did even before the priest thing."

"I knew this was going to be an interesting theory," said. "What does it have to do with what happened with Serena? You can't possibly think I loved her more than I loved you."

"I want to know what the difference was."

"Timing," said Eric, amazed that Nicole with all of the thought she'd put into this hadn't been able to see the most obvious possible solution. "I'd just spent years immersed in an environment that has views about sex that are very strict. Then you throw the whole thing with Kristen on top of it, where it was my first time in years and it wasn't with someone I would have chosen and I couldn't even remember it. I was ashamed of what I wanted and I was confused about who I was. I couldn't let go of it right away any more than I could have let go of it right away if I'd been with someone who died. It felt like a betrayal. I dealt with it with you, so I didn't have to deal with it with her."

"That's not fair."

"Were we operating under the assumption that life is fair?"

Nicole made an irritated noise in her throat.

"Are you telling me that it never went in the other direction?" he asked. "That no one else ever benefited from a lesson you learned the hard way on me?"

"Well, I never got married to one man while I was engaged to a different man again," she grumbled begrudgingly at last. "And I guess I stopped lying as much when I finally realized that that tends to implode relationships a little bit." She shifted away from him and stared at the ceiling. "I always told Daniel that he was the one who made me a better person, but we were only together a few months and part of why I always told him the truth was because I didn't want a repeat of what happened when I shredded those documents and didn't tell you about it."

"Because you were afraid, because I wasn't telling you why I was afraid."

"I'm sorry. I was caught up in proving your innocence and then what it would mean for me if the Church wanted you back, but somewhere along the line I forgot that what Kristen did to you mattered in ways other than your vocation. Maybe you needed to be in control a little more, and I was so aggressive with you—"

"You mean just now?" he teased, because the last thing he wanted to discuss while lying in a hotel bed with Nicole was what had happened in a hotel bed with Kristen. "I thought you screaming 'put it in already' was very sexy." He grinned, grabbing a rose petal that had wound up in the sheets and brushing it over Nicole's nose. "Kept the sappy flower petal theme from going too far, you know?"

"Shut up!" It had worked. Nicole was laughing again, propped up on one arm and lazily watching him. "You didn't tell me what you dreamed last year. That night in the hospital?"

Eric groaned. This wasn't the first time she asked, and it wouldn't be the last if he declined to answer. It was better to just tell her. "Nothing I want to do in real life."

Nicole raised her eyebrows with delight and mock-whistled. "Even better."

"You're building this up to be way more interesting than it is."

"Then maybe you better tell me now, before I build it up even more."

So Eric told Nicole about the fantasy that had taken him from the rectory to the club to a back alley. "But I'd really not go back to prison for lewd behavior and indecent exposure, okay?"

"Fine," said Nicole, drawing out the word in mock-disappointment. "It'll just be one of those things we never do for real, like me straddling you in a confessional."

"Nicole!" Eric didn't know why he was shocked. He'd known that Nicole had spent more than a little time having less than pure thoughts about him in those days. While he'd repressed his feelings, she'd given hers free reign to write wild stories, and he loved her for it.

"Bless me, Father, for I _will_ sin," said Nicole seductively.

Eric glanced surreptitiously at the window to see if there were any signs that lightening was about to strike them dead.

"I wouldn't, really," Nicole added. "I respect the church, and I respect you, and Father Louis and Father Matt, and…"

"And God?" suggested Eric.

"Him too," said Nicole with a shrug. She reached out to caress the scar Orpheus' bullet had left on Eric's left arm. "Does it hurt at all?"

"No. It didn't even hurt at the time. I went right from adrenaline high to painkillers in the hospital." He smiled slyly. "And of course seeing you in my room all night would've taken the pain away all by itself, even if you were busy texting your admirers."

Nicole scowled at the memory. "Deimos. Deimos didn't like it when I wore heels."

Eric blinked. "What?"

"I mean, the man was busy stealing and killing and trying to take revenge on the whole Kiriakis clan, and he was intimidated by me being taller than he was if I wore heels. It was pathetic."

"Good move dumping him, then," Eric said firmly. "We left your shoes in the back of the car, didn't we? You ran up here barefoot. I should go get them."

Nicole tightened her grip on him. "You're not going anywhere. Anyway, do you really think I travel with only one pair of shoes?"

Eric shook his head. "What was I thinking?"

"You have stuff, too." Nicole pointed to a box in the corner of the room that Eric had noticed but not explored. "Marlena mailed it to you here. I carried your phone and your camera but we shipped the rest."

"My camera?"

"Not the really good one, don't worry. The smaller, sort of good one."

"I wasn't worried," said Eric, even though he had been.

She looked him straight in the eyes. "You don't have to be. Not about your camera, and not about your deep dark secret. Whatever it is, we're going to be fine."

 **Three**.

Nicole stretched as she awoke the next morning and relished the delicious flashes of soreness that coursed through her body. She felt warm and loved and pleasantly satisfied, and she couldn't remember the last time she'd felt such absolute bliss.

That lasted for approximately three seconds, at which time she registered that Eric was not in the bed with her.

"Eric?"

There was no answer.

She bolted to her feet, her heart pounding frantically as she did. The room was empty, but a cup of coffee sat on the table by the door to the balcony, and the paper cup was warm to the touch. She gave a corner of the shade a tug, and saw that Eric was sitting outside in the early morning darkness and gazing fixedly at his phone.

"All right Nicole," she instructed herself aloud. "Get it together. Probably better not to freak out about him being ten feet away if you want him to tell you whatever this secret is and get it over with."

She dressed and fixed her makeup before grabbing the coffee and joining Eric outside.

He glanced up at her with a smile so radiant that she forgot that she had ever been annoyed with him over the terrifying twenty seconds that she'd thought he was gone.

"How long have you been awake?" she asked.

He shrugged. "About an hour. I couldn't decide whether I should wake you up to see the sunrise, but now I don't have to."

"And what were you doing while waiting for the sunrise?"

"Do you know how many emails you have in your inbox if you don't check it for two years?"

She winced. "Maybe you should just get rid of it and get a new one."

"No. I've had this since… since before I went to Africa, anyway."

"So how many?"

"Thirty thousand, give or take."

"How many have you deleted?"

"About a thousand so far."

He was still deleting steadily as they spoke. "Can I look?" she asked, because having permission to demand that a man spend the better part of a day stark naked wasn't the same as having permission to go through someone's phone.

"Sure."

She leaned over behind him, propping her arms on his shoulders and reveling in how domestic it felt. She barely noticed the emails; she was more interested in the feel of his back and the smell of his skin and the way his eyes moved as he made split-second decisions. He deleted dozens of out-dated advertisements, but looked at the photographs from mailing lists run by distant cousins.

At the top of the list, she noticed, was a message from his cousin Chelsea. Nicole had met Chelsea a few times; she hadn't known that Eric ever had.

The sky changed from black to blue to gray to pink. Eric put down the phone and leaned against the edge of the balcony. Flecks of golden light caught the gray hairs tangled in his beard.

"Do you really have your heart set on not shaving?" she asked. She supposed that Eric, who would never have considered telling her whether she should wear flats instead of heels, deserved the same consideration if he was really in love with the atrocity currently concealing half of his face.

"We didn't have time yesterday. I'm not waiting for you to get down on your knees and beg or anything."

Nicole felt a devilish flash of excitement at the image. "Honey," she said with deliberate throatiness. "If I got down on my knees, you would be the one doing the begging."

Eric's eyes widened in the pink dawn light. After the day they'd had yesterday, she was impressed that the idea had any immediate appeal for him. But then, they were both coming off of a very long drought.

She theatrically removed her jacket and let it fall to the concrete floor at Eric's feet.

"We can't," said Eric, but it sounded to Nicole's ear like a rather hollow refusal.

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"That's a public beach down there! There are people out there walking their dogs and stuff! All they have to do is look up here, and…"

Nicole dropped to her knees on the jacket and put one hand against the half-wall that ran around the balcony. "They can't see me. All they can see is a man enjoying his coffee and the sunrise. Really, really, really, enjoying his coffee and the sunrise. It's about as close as I can get to your little back alley fantasies without involving any back alleys." She gave him a stroke through his jeans. He was half-hard already, and he didn't object when she unzipped his fly and took him into her mouth.

"Nicole!" Her name had never sounded so good.

"Are you going to shave as soon as we go inside?"

"Yes. Yes!"

Nicole resumed her previous activity.

The sky flashed a spectacular shade of red as Eric's body shook and his hands dug hard into Nicole's hair.

"Best sunrise ever," said Eric when he regained his voice. He pulled Nicole to her feet and dragged her into a coffee-flavored kiss, maneuvering her back into the room as he did. Once inside, he swept her into his arms and deposited her on the bed.

"What are you doing?" asked Nicole, not that she wasn't enjoying herself.

"Reciprocating," said Eric as one of his hands drifted beneath her skirt.

"No beard burn on that part of my anatomy," she decreed. "I'll deal with it on my face, but nowhere else."

Eric met her eyes with amusement. "You should have led with that," he told her, and he stalked into the bathroom, locking the door behind him.

When he emerged, he was clean-shaven and looking like the boy who had walked into the Java Cafe and the man who had given her sanctuary in the rectory when she'd had nothing.

"Eric," Nicole breathed. _Her_ Eric. He was back.

He didn't answer. Instead, he buried his head between her legs.

It was clear to Nicole that she was going to have a very good day.

* * *

When they were walking hand-in-hand on the beach, Nicole asked again whether Eric had wanted to shave or whether he had done it to please her.

"Both," said Eric as they watched the waves crash against the rocks. "I would have done it before I left, but I knew you wanted to be the one who got me to do it. So you were."

"Does it feel different?"

"Of course." He shivered slightly, and Nicole didn't think it was because of the October wind. "I feel like me again."

She squeezed his hand. "I'm glad. Because I really like you."

"I really like you, too."

It was strange. _I like you_ was what she and Brady always said to each other in lieu of _I love you_ , and it was odd to exchange the words with Brady's brother who she did, in fact, love.

Brady had texted her more than once in the past day demanding an update, and she doubted that he was satisfied with her early-morning reassurance that everything was fine. "Did you check in with your family?" she asked.

"Mmm-hmm."

"I saw that your cousin Chelsea emailed you. I didn't know you even knew her."

"I don't. Not very well."

"But she emailed you the day you got out of prison? I didn't see the whole thing, but it looked like she was telling you to call her mother?"

He dropped her hand and pulled her into a sideways hug instead. "It's part of the deep, dark secret."

"Any idea when you're going to share that with me?"

Eric sighed heavily. "Billie's coming here the day after tomorrow."

"Does Billie know she's part of a deep dark secret?"

"I assume Chelsea told Billie everything." Eric sighed again. Nicole was going to start counting sighs unless Eric started talking for real.

"Why does Chelsea know the deep dark secret?" Nicole pushed.

He sighed for the third time and held her more closely. "Do you know where Chelsea came from?"

Nicole craned her neck to look up at Eric. "I'm gonna take a wild guess that Bo and Billie loved each other very, very much, and nine months later—"

Eric's sharp laugh rang off the rocks. "And nine months later Billie went into labor in a swamp in the middle of nowhere, and she held her dead baby in her arms and cried."

"But Stefano got involved," said Nicole. "Knew things he didn't have any business knowing, like always. The day he told me that he somehow knew that I'd miscarried and switched Sydney and Gracie—" She broke off her explanation when she saw Eric's face. He looked shattered.

"When I was in prison, I had my GED candidates read your column in the Spectator for practice, you know?"

"And bragged about how much your girlfriend loved you?" she teased, desperately wanting to lighten the mood and not sure why.

"I didn't have to brag. Your headshot did the bragging for you." He swaggered slightly, and a thrill of happiness ran down her spine. "Of course, it wasn't as if I was the one who took that headshot. Then the world would see how beautiful you are."

"I'm sure Jennifer will be happy to let you shoot a replacement," said Nicole. "So your GED students were reading my column."

"And one of them recognized you."

"You told me that much in a letter."

"Yeah. Nicole." His face tightened and he led her into a rocky cove. Once they were surrounded by cliffs on three sides and the ocean on the fourth, he settled her against the rocks and settled himself close beside her.

"What did he say about me?" she whispered.

"He said that your son didn't die. He said Stefano stole him."

Alarm bells clanged in Nicole's ears and she was glad that she was sitting down.

 _Please show me my baby!_

… _She pushed me._

 _Your baby is dead._

The pile of onesies, never to be worn, spread out on her hospital bed. It had been close to Halloween then, just as it was now. The infant-sized jack-o-lantern onesie rose in her mind's eye to taunt her.

She felt all over again the blade of the knife pressed against her throat.

 _I thought if I could have the one thing I wanted the most in this world, a little baby, if I couldn't have that, Daniel, I thought, at least— at least I could have you._

She pushed the memories down as deep as they would go. She couldn't scream or throw things or burst into tears. She had to show Eric that she was strong enough to handle whatever he had to say.

"I reached out to Chelsea because she's an expert on this. Billie too. That's why Billie is coming."

"That's not a very dark secret," said Nicole. Her voice was steady. She had learned to keep a steady voice no matter how she felt way back in the school of _Locker Room Lolita_ , and she knew that even if her words echoed in her own ears, they didn't echo in Eric's. "At least, you're still the white knight. This man said something that made you suspicious, so you decided to check into it. You couldn't do anything else." She kissed his cheek. "I appreciate it. I don't understand why you felt like you couldn't tell me, but I appreciate it."

"When that baby died, you held a knife to your own throat."

"How would you know? You weren't there!" Nicole objected.

"Half of Salem was," said Eric seriously. "And it wasn't that much later that I came home. I saw you, Nicole. You were wrecked, you were empty, you'd pushed away everyone who would have sympathized with you and you were completely alone."

"What a charitable way of putting it."

"I didn't want to take you back to that place. I didn't want to give you false hope if I was projecting my own— if I was seeing things that weren't there because I want so completely to do something to make up for what I've taken from you."

"What you've given me is more than enough. You have nothing to make up for," said Nicole, and at least that was true.

 _ **Four.**_

For the next two days, Eric sought to find ways to comfort and reassure Nicole, and for the next two days Nicole gave no signs that she needed comfort or reassurance. She asked dozens of follow up questions about Jimmy and whether there was any way that she could talk to him. She asked who Eric had spoken to other than Chelsea. She asked what he knew about what Billie was going to say when she arrived.

Eric had never doubted her reporting skills, but he hadn't quite expected a dispassionate display of them under the circumstances.

He tried to find ways to help her enjoy their vacation while they waited for word on the next step of the search for Danny Raphael; to his horror, he realized that there, too, he was virtually helpless. It took something out of whisking her away on a romantic date when she had to be the one to drive, a bottle of wine was out of the question, and his money was limited to the cash his father had slipped into his wallet and his mother had slipped into his jacket pocket.

Promising Nicole over and over that he loved her and would do anything for her seemed much too small.

Nicole, meanwhile, suggested distractions that were genuinely interesting to Eric. They took a cruise on a lobster boat, and Nicole smiled indulgently while Eric chatted with the lobstermen about his grandfather the fisherman. They wandered along a trail in the woods and admired the autumn leaves, just as Eric had wished he could do a year before when he'd first been transferred to his tourist trap of a prison.

They still made love each night, and Nicole was assertive and desperate— not desperate the way they had both been on the first day that they had staggered through the door of the hotel room, but in a way frantic for a connection that Eric wasn't sure he was delivering.

* * *

When Billie arrived, it was with a device to make certain that there were no bugs in their hotel room and a mile-high stack of documents. "Sometimes it's easier to get something unofficially if you take it in the old school format," she told them. "These are the records of little boys who entered the foster care system at any time within the past five years who have birthdays of record within a year of Nicole's son's."

"Within a year?" asked Eric. No wonder there were so many records.

"You know Chad DiMera?" asked Billie rhetorically. "You know how his mother hid him from Stefano? She lied about his age. Sent him to school when he was six and claimed he was four so if Stefano found out about him the math wouldn't work. I didn't want to take any chances that the old man learned from that and decided to use it himself."

"Thank you, Billie," said Eric, appreciating her fierce passion. "You always come through."

"When else has she come through for you?" asked Nicole with the tiniest edge to her voice. If Eric flattered himself, it almost sounded like jealousy.

"It's been a while. Way back when Sami was on death row and we were in and out of strip clubs trying to find Franco's mistress to see if she'd testify about him being violent."

"Candy," Billie completed. "You were so young, Eric," she reminisced fondly. "I thought someone was going to arrest me for corrupting a minor when I took you into some of those places."

"You didn't take me!" Eric objected. "We went together, and I was legal."

"I think you'd been legal for three whole days," said Billie seriously before turning to Nicole to bring her into the joke. "You know how Eric was. One of those men who looked twelve until he was thirty."

"Maybe I should have let him keep the beard," Nicole told Billie.

"Back then I don't think he could have grown a beard if he'd wanted to," Billie returned.

"That's not very nice," said Eric lamely, because _that's not true_ would have been a complete lie.

"We like you just the way you are," Billie teased.

Nicole ran her hand down Eric's face and he fought the urge to lean into her touch and close his eyes.

"Thank you, Billie," Nicole said when she'd let her hand fall back to her lap. "Really. I know I was on the wrong side of history back then, and Lucas is your brother and he never forgave me for what I did when I married him. Not to mention that Jennifer is your best friend and when— when they told me Danny Raphael died I said that she pushed me—"

"You know I did the exact same thing, right?" Billie grabbed for Nicole's hand. "When they told me Chelsea was dead I blamed Hope. I regret it, and ironically enough Hope managed to put that aside and be a wonderful stepmother to Chelsea when Chelsea needed her. And even if I weren't exactly as guilty as you, I wouldn't want to see any mother have to worry about whether her child was dead or alive, or what little games Stefano DiMera decided to play to steal those childhood memories from a family."

Eric watched as Nicole's body stiffened and she stared at her lap, blinking hard. Nicole let go of Billie's hand and ran from the room to the balcony, calling something about needing a minute over her shoulder.

Eric stood up to follow her.

"Don't," said Billie quietly. "She asked for a minute. Give it to her before you chase her."

"But…"

"What do you think's going to happen if you let her have some privacy to collect herself?"

Eric imagined once more the scene he'd heard described time and time again: Nicole with a knife at her throat. "She wanted to hurt herself when it happened," he said quietly.

"Of course she did," said Billie. "But that's not where she is now. She felt like she'd lost everything. Now she has you. Now she has hope."

"I just don't want it to turn out to be false hope."

"I understand. Chelsea told me that you didn't want Nicole to know what was going on at all. I'm glad you came to your senses about that. She's not a child. She doesn't need to be sheltered from her own life."

"I know." Eric rearranged the stacks of paper they had spread across the desk. "I've taken so much away from her already," he admitted at last. "So much away from everyone. You… I know you don't need me to tell me this, but Chelsea is amazing. When she talked to me about this, and when she reached out to me about what happened with Zack, she never even mentioned how close she was to Daniel. If I hadn't already known that she and Daniel had been involved, I wouldn't have known from the way she treated me. She was kind and generous, and she didn't have to be just because we have a set of grandparents in common, you know? She could have told me that I killed a man she loved and she wasn't going to do anything I asked."

Billie's face softened the way parents' faces always softened when someone admired their children. "I'm not going to argue with you about whether Chelsea is amazing and perfect. She is," said Billie. "But thankfully Daniel was way out of her life long before you met him."

"Thankfully?" asked Eric, more with surprise than offense. As far as he knew, no one had disliked Daniel.

"I know he was your friend," said Billie. "Skilled doctor, wonderful man. I am so grateful for those extra years he gave Bo. But he was old enough to be Chelsea's father and I did not approve of him moving in on her while she was his patient and she had a perfectly nice boyfriend who loved her. Never mind that he was sleeping with her grandmother at the time. The first time I met Daniel, he flirted with me and I told him that that was one grandmother-mother-daughter trifecta he would not be winning before I hit him. I'm sorry he's dead, Eric. It was a real tragedy. But as a mother I'm still delighted that Chelsea dodged that bullet."

Nicole chose that moment to return to the room with her eyes slightly redder than they should have been, and so Eric didn't have the opportunity to defend Daniel.

He turned the thought over and over in his head that night, though, as both he and Nicole lay awake but pretended otherwise in the hope that the other might get some rest.

He had long since stopped thinking of Daniel as a fully-fledged human being who might have been disliked by otherwise completely decent and rational people.

* * *

The next day dawned unseasonably warm, and Nicole and Eric took their pile of documents, carefully protected by bags and clips and paperweights, to the beach to review them.

Nicole went over the lists first, penciling a thin line through children who for some reason could not be hers and marking those with particularly suspicious names with a star. "Daniel" had been among the most popular names in the country that year; Stefano would not have needed to change the boy's name to keep him well hidden, if indeed Jimmy had told Eric the truth. There were fewer boys named Raphael, and even fewer with names like Taylor or Walker that might have been chosen to taunt Nicole.

Eric double-checked Nicole's lists to make sure that he didn't see anything that she hadn't seen.

Butterflies shot through his stomach when his eyes fell on the name. Nicole had neither eliminated the boy nor starred him as a likely candidate. Eric fumbled for a pen.

"What did I miss?" asked Nicole. She leaned against Eric as he circled the name and drew a star beside it. "Why that one?"

"What do you know about the biblical Daniel?" Eric asked.

"Literally nothing."

"Come on, Nicole," said Eric. He wanted her to make the connection for herself. He wanted her to have the moment he had had.

"I didn't even know it was a biblical name!"

"Yes, you did."

"I was your secretary, okay? I might have spent a lot of time on hallowed ground, but I was worrying about whether the maintenance staff was keeping up with the radiators in the school building, not memorizing Bible stories." She cocked her head with interest. "Is Eric a biblical name?"

"No. My parents named me after my child molester great uncle, you know that. It was a Norse king's name before that. Christian but not biblical, same as Nicole."

"I'm glad we match," said Nicole, and Eric didn't know how she could have such an amused smile on her face at a time like this.

"Think, Nicole. I don't care if a child has ever been to church in his or her life. What's the Bible story about Daniel he or she still knows?"

"Daniel and the lion's den!" Nicole exploded with frustration.

"Right!" Eric pointed at the name he had circled. "And the king who was tricked into throwing Daniel to the lions was named Darius. Look at the middle name."

"Michael," Nicole read. "Eric, that's one of the most common names—"

"It's the name of an archangel. There are only three. Gabriel, Michael—"

"And Raphael," Nicole completed as the gray waves crashed in front of them on the otherwise deserted beach.

 **Five**.

The night after Nicole and Eric searched the records for little boys who might have been Danny Raphael was the first night that Nicole didn't initiate lovemaking. She would have been willing to indulge Eric if he had hinted at an interest, but he hadn't, and so she remained lost in her thoughts until they turned out the lights and said goodnight with kisses that were no less meaningful for their perfunctoriness.

Nicole didn't expect the sleep that night, but the combination of the day spent in the ocean air and a sleep deficit that had been building since Eric had told her his suspicions about her son made the room spin uncomfortably as soon as she closed her eyes.

The next thing she knew, the "Salem Welcomes You" sign loomed outside her car window. There had been no reason to stay in New England. Their honeymoon weekend was over, and little Darius Michael lived in Chicago— practically Salem's backyard. They could seek him out better from home.

It startled her to realize that she wasn't driving. She had thought that Eric's license hadn't been reinstated. She turned her head to look at Eric, and couldn't stop a yelp of surprise from escaping her throat when she saw that it wasn't Eric who was beside her in the car.

It was Daniel.

Relief washed over her. Daniel wasn't dead after all. They'd made a mistake. Daniel was here and safe and—

She looked at her hand.

The old engagement ring was firmly in place, and a wedding band was tucked snugly beside it.

It was good that she hadn't really donated the ring to charity. Daniel would have understood, but still.

Just as quickly as it had come, a feeling of hollow emptiness overtook her. She hadn't really reconnected with Eric or planned a life with him. She didn't even know where Eric was.

"Daniel," she began, because Daniel would know where Eric was.

"I told you, not another word."

Nicole was taken aback. It had been almost two years since she had been able to speak to Daniel, and now he didn't want to hear anything she had to say? "You told me?" she asked. "I wasn't aware that my being your wife meant that you decided when I am and am not allowed to ask questions."

"Wife in name only," snapped Daniel as they bounced over a jolt in the dirt road.

Nicole didn't remember the highway being made of dirt. She had also forgotten that their car was a horse-drawn carriage. Probably Daniel had been trying to cut down on his carbon footprint. Daniel was responsible that way.

The horses came to a stop, and strong arms dragged Nicole into the town hall, where shackles were fastened to her ankles and wrists.

Daniel strode away without a backward glance; he took his place beside Victor, who smiled vindictively in Nicole's direction. "Goody Walker," announced Victor, "you stand accused of witchcraft."

"This isn't that Salem!" Nicole blurted out.

"The witch knows of another Salem?" asked Victor.

Nicole wasn't sure how to answer that.

"Who accuses this woman?" Victor bellowed.

"My son and I do," came the clear, cultured tones of EJ DiMera.

"You're supposed to be dead!" Nicole objected, as if that had ever mattered in her Salem.

"I am not so susceptible to witchcraft," EJ returned. "My helpless child, on the other hand, my son is young and vulnerable."

"Damn you! You know I would never hurt Johnny, not any more than I would ever hurt Sydney!"

"Johnny, thankfully, is away at school, and his sister is visiting her aunt. It is my youngest son you dared to attack."

"Will the child Darius Michael step forward?"

Darius appeared from the shadows behind EJ.

He was his father in miniature: tall and thin, with aristocratic features and dark hair and eyes. Nicole saw nothing of herself in the child she had grieved for five years while EJ had hardly seemed to notice the loss

"Tell them what you saw, Darius," directed EJ.

"I saw Goody Walker with the devil," said Darius. "She reached for me and said she would give me to the devil for a present. I ran away and hid." Darius fixed her with a glare. "She tried to take me from my family and make me go with her. I would not let her."

"You're my child, Darius," Nicole pleaded. "I carried you inside of me for nine months, and—"

"You were merely a flower pot that held my father's seed. I am not your child, and I will not go with you."

"She's stolen children before," added EJ. "My daughter Sydney, Nicole tried to steal her."

"Can anyone else offer testimony regarding Goody Walker's behavior toward our children?" asked Victor.

"I can." Suddenly Will Horton stood beside EJ. "When I was but a child myself, Nicole accepted payment to be my stepmother. She had me drink mimosas in place of milk, and taught me to call my father 'martini breath' in the hopes I would be taken from him. The devil had told her that she would be rewarded with my uncle if she did."

Nicole winced. "Sorry about that, Will. But it was a long time ago. You turned out okay, right?"

"I'm dead," said Will. "How do you know that's not why? The butterfly effect, and all." Will held out his hand, and a a blonde girl took it.

"Mia," said Nicole.

"Goody Walker lied to me," said Mia without prompting. "I was a child, with no family to look out for me, and Goody Walker- well, was underage and you gave me money to dance in front of dirty businessmen in Japan, and then you handed my baby off to die!"

"That's not what happened! Gracie…"

"My daughter, Grace." Mia's eyes filled with tears. "Nicole killed my daughter Grace. Grace might have lived if Nicole hadn't delivered her herself and then dumped her off at some crooked baby broker's office."

"It wasn't the first time Goody Walker preyed on a young woman," interrupted Chloe.

"Chloe!" Nicole pleaded. "Chloe, we're friends, we—"

"I was a teenager and she put flesh-eating bacteria on my face because she wanted my boyfriend!"

"This is a the first time we've ever agreed, Ghoul Girl!" Jan Spears emerged from the crowd and draped her arm around her old classmate's shoulders. "I was a teenager, and Goody Walker made me her hitwoman. I killed Victor for her. At least, I thought I did."

"You were a psycho! I didn't make you a psycho! I didn't think you were really going to kill Victor, and you didn't!"

"Electrocuted him in the bathtub," said Jan. "Right after I saw Goody Walker with the devil."

"I wasn't that much older than either of you," Nicole whined. It was clear that no one in the room was moved by her protestations.

"I move for conviction, effective immediately!" barked Victor. The crowd roared its approval. "Will the doctor approach?"

Nicole looked wildly around for Daniel— he must have a plan to save her, after all— but instead she found herself staring into the face of Colin Murphy. "Hello, Nicole," greeted Colin with a sickening smile. "It's a rather good thing that I botched that operation that left you unlikely to conceive children, isn't it?"

"I'll say!" agreed Victor. "Not that I appreciated you sleeping with Nicole when she was my property—"

"I was never your property!"

"You were bought and paid for, Nicole. I told you what would happen if you tried to take my money and have your dirty little sexcapades elsewhere. You were my property. You knew the drill, after all. I wasn't the first time you sold yourself to a man. I wasn't even the second!" Victor pointed to the audience, and Trent and Lucas favored Nicole with jaunty waves. "Continue the inspection, Colin."

The inspection involved Colin ripping off Nicole's clothes over her objections.

"It's nothing new to you, Misty Circle," Colin growled in his bizarre Australian-Irish brogue. "You did try to murder me."

"You were blackmailing me!"

"You shouldn't have done anything that resulted in blackmail," said Colin.

Nicole stood naked and chained in front of all of Salem, alive or dead.

"This woman shouldn't be allowed to raise a dog, let alone a child," Victor declared, and all assembled roared their approval. "Come to think of it, she killed her dog, too. What was that pathetic creature's name? Pookie?"

It was the reference to Pookie that pushed Nicole over the edge. Pookie had loved her at a time in her life when no one else had. She began to sob. "The vet said—"

Darius Michael pushed to the front of the crowd. Nicole startled to see Pookie in his arms. "Pookie didn't want to be with you, so Pookie pretended to be dead to get away with you, same as me," he said. A small accusing finger pointed at Nicole. "Burn Goody Walker! Burn the witch!"

"Burn the witch! Burn the witch! Burn the witch!" the crowd chanted.

But the hands that grabbed Nicole didn't belong to Colin Murphy.

They belonged to Paul Mendez. "Bet I can make a buck from the movie rights, Nicky," he breathed as he shoved her naked body roughly against the stake.

"You're my father! You should—"

"I don't want to hear a word about what I should or shouldn't do."

Fay stood beside Paul and watched him, the way she always had.

" _For God's sake, you're my mother!"_ Nicole screamed. _"Protect me!"_

Fay shook her head quietly and turned the other way.

"You would have been a lousy parent anyway," said Darius. "You didn't exactly have anything like a good role model." Pookie yelped in agreement.

Then Darius himself lit her on fire. She tried not to inhale the flames, but they were melting her from the inside out as he body drenched itself in useless sweat and tears.

EJ placed his hands on Darius' shoulders, and they both laughed as Nicole lost consciousness for the last time.

 **Six.**

"Get off of me!" Nicole heard her own voice shout when his hands pushed her back into the fire.

No. Not into the fire.

Not pushing, either. Holding so that she didn't thrash herself right out of the bed like a toddler.

Fresh tears coursed down her cheeks. The dream was over and she was awake, but the terror and humiliation remained.

"Good. There you are," said Eric.

She could only half-see him through the fog of her tears in the dark hotel room.

"I had a nightmare," she explained lamely.

"I think that might be an understatement." He stood up and offered her his hand. She took it with some trepidation and let him lead her into the bathroom.

It wasn't the same as the dream. She was still naked, but so was Eric, and there was no one else around.

He flipped on the light in the hallway instead of the light inside the bathroom so she wasn't blinded by fluorescent brightness and forced to stare at her clammy, sweat-soaked body in the full-length mirror. Trust a photographer to do the right thing with the light.

"Do you want a shower?" he asked.

"No!" She squirmed at the memory of Jan nearly murdering Victor in a bathtub.

"All right." He grabbed a washcloth off the shelf and ran it under the faucet. "Okay if I touch you again?"

"Okay."

"Close your eyes, just for a second?" She didn't think she would have obeyed anyone other than Eric. He ran the washcloth over her face, and right away she started to feel better. "Open your eyes. Helps, doesn't it?"

"Yeah."

"It's usually the other way around," he mused as he worked his way down to her neck and shoulders. "I remember— it was right after they played that tape at Brady's wedding. You were so angry at me, you said you would never forgive me, and I didn't blame you." He was working a massage into the sponge bath, and it felt good. She was going to demand more massages as foreplay. Or afterplay. Or both. "You did tell me that I had to let Daniel run an experiment to find out what drugs Kristen had used on me. He had to check me into the hospital because he knew I was going to spike a fever. They'd told me to let myself lose consciousness, and then I felt a hand on my cheek and the compress on my forehead." He refreshed his own compress before swirling it around her breasts and over her stomach. "It was you. Like an angel. You told me you forgave me."

"You looked so pathetic," she said roughly. "Like I look now."

"You look like a beautiful golden goddess, same as always."

She didn't laugh and she didn't believe him, but she appreciated the effort. "Your mother came in when you fell asleep again," she told him. "She said she could tell just by watching the way I looked at you that I was still in love with you. She said that since you belonged in the priesthood, with everyone watching you after the scandal, I could only hurt you if I let anyone else see how I felt. That was when I decided to ask Daniel to lie about being in a relationship with me. He agreed to it because he liked you so much." Eric was working on her legs now, and the impromptu massage felt even better than it had felt on her shoulders. "I heard what you and Billie said about Daniel the other day."

"You heard her say that he was a great man and a great doctor and his death was a real loss?" asked Eric.

"That. And what she said about him and Chelsea."

"I'd hoped you'd missed that part." Eric vanished for a second and returned with a handful of clothing. He put on his boxers and t-shirt before speaking again. "She was being a mother. There's no man on this planet that was good enough for Chelsea in her eyes when Chelsea started dating. I felt that way about Sami and Carrie, and they're just my sisters, not my daughters. You have no idea how much energy I burned just glaring at Austin and Lucas back then and wondering what my gorgeous, intelligent, perfect sisters wanted with those two jerks. And then a few years later, with Belle." Eric shuddered. "I thought I was going to have to beat the ass of every teenage boy in the whole town. I honestly don't think Billie meant anything about Daniel personally."

"I know," agreed Nicole. Eric had taken a towel and begun to rub it all over her body. "But when I heard Billie, it made me think of some things her mother said last spring."

"What things?"

"Mainly that Daniel was only interested in women when someone else had them, so he was only interested in me when I was pregnant with EJ's baby and then again when he knew you were in love with me."

"You know that isn't true," said Eric. "Kate's always saying things. It's what she does."

"I know. I thought I knew that. Then tonight, in my dream, Daniel was alive again."

"Oh, Nicole," breathed Eric.

"I looked at him, and I looked at my wedding ring, and I wondered where _you_ were. And then he turned me over to Victor to have me burned at the stake as a witch."

"I thought they hanged the witches in the Salem witch trials."

Nicole glared.

"That's not the point," said Eric hastily. He held out her panties and had her step into them, then tugged one of his own t-shirts over her head. It wasn't one he had worn, and so his smell didn't cling to it, but there was something vaguely possessive in the gesture that made her heart, finally, slow to a normal rate.

A moment later, they were back in the bedroom. Eric ignored the sweat-soaked bed in favor of a chair. He pulled Nicole onto his lap and covered them both with a sheet.

"All my husbands were there," said Nicole as she rested her head against Eric's chest. "Trent, Victor, Lucas, EJ. I don't marry the nice ones, you know. I screw it up. I must have screwed it up with Daniel, and that's why he gave me to them."

"Would never have happened. It was a dream, Nicole."

"And that's not the worst part. The worst part is that _he_ was there. Danny Raphael. Darius Michael. Whatever his name is, it was him and he wanted me to die, he pretended to die himself to get away from me because I knew I couldn't ever be a good mother."

Eric's arms tightened around her. "He was a baby. If he's out there, he's not very much more than a baby now. Even if he wanted to—"

"Somehow, he knew."

"You will be a wonderful mother, Nicole."

"How? My father forced me to do porn and my mother looked the other way because that was easier."

"You aren't your parents."

"I couldn't even take care of a dog. I wish you'd met Pookie."

"You told me about Pookie. Pookie had a long life for a little dog like that."

"Maybe."

"I've heard about that dog. No dog ever had a better life. I mean, until the German Shepard we're going to get in a few years. That's going to be one lucky dog."

Suddenly the world was full of possibilities again. "We're getting a German Shepard?"

"Yeah. The kids in the neighborhood can play fetch with her over the white picket fence on their way home from school every afternoon."

Nicole leaned in to kiss Eric. "Are you going to move in with me as soon as we get back to Salem, or do you need to be on your own for a while? Or with your family?"

"I will be with you every minute that you'll have me."

"Good. I didn't want to go back to sleeping without you. Even if thanks to my overactive imagination neither one of us got much sleep tonight. Sorry about that, by the way."

"I'm glad you're talking to me. You've been… you've been very calm since I told you what Jimmy told me."

"And being calm is so unlike me?" she challenged.

"I just want to know that you can talk to me when you're worried or scared or angry. You don't have to run off into the other room or pretend everything's fine or spend all your time trying to make sure I'm happy."

"Don't ask me to stop trying to make you happy. That's not something I can do."

"I love you, too."

She kissed him again and regretfully disentangled herself from his lap. She grabbed her purse and pulled the small pouch from the hidden pocket. She hadn't touched it since she'd gotten on the plane, but she knew that she would find it right where she'd left it.

"What have you got?" asked Eric curiously.

"You told me three years ago that you wouldn't ever want it back, but I think you might have changed your mind." She put the engagement ring in his outstretched palm. "You need to take it back, because you need to give it back to me when you're ready. And when you're ready, the answer is going to be yes."

 **Seven.**

The ring began burning a hole in Eric's pocket the moment Nicole returned it to him.

She had told him in one of her letters that she had kept it. He had known that she had written the truth; there had been no reason for her to lie. Still, it had been difficult to believe that he would ever see the ring again. He had been so angry for so long when he'd broken off their engagement, and then Nicole had been even angrier, and justifiably so. The fact that she had ever forgiven him was a miracle.

He didn't like the way the ring felt in his pocket. He much preferred the way the ring had looked on Nicole's finger.

 _You should have proposed on the spot,_ a voice in the back of his head suggested meanly. _It would have been spontaneous and romantic. You wouldn't have had time to screw things up. You wouldn't have had to think of something worthy of Nicole._

 _You shouldn't give her that ring when there's no way you'd be able to afford it now, let alone a better one. You have nothing to offer her._

"Eric?"

Eric jumped at the sound of Nicole's voice.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you." She trailed one finger down the side of his face. "Anything you want to do before we head back to Salem?"

"I thought we did all of those things," he forced himself to tease. He kissed her deeply and was rewarded with a passionate response. "Over, and over, and over, and over, and—"

"I think we'll be able to do that at home, too." She beamed at him, and his feeling of unworthiness intensified. She was perfect. He had tortured her and held a grudge and finally taken away the most important person in her life. He stood before her unable to offer anything but himself, and she still looked at him with undisguised adoration. "I'm so glad you want to come home with me right away. We've never really done that, you know, and I'm tired of waiting for the right moment."

He was tired of waiting, too.

And he wasn't going to wait until he had the perfect idea for a proposal or until he had the money for a better ring. Nicole was the one who had held onto this one and given it back to him with a promise to say yes. She had all but done the proposing herself.

Things were going to be the way they should have been when he and Nicole hadn't been much more than children and he'd been the photographer assigned the impossible task of doing justice to her beauty on a beach much like this one, if three thousand miles away.

"There is one other thing I'd like to do," he told her.

"Anything."

"I want to take your picture on the beach."

She made a face, but she didn't refuse him. "I'm not exactly the best model at the moment, but you're the artist."

He pulled her close and kissed her again. "You are always, always the best model."

She laughed and pushed herself away. "I should at least put on that blue dress again."

He held on. "No." The summer weather had vanished as quickly as it had come, and the air outside smelled almost like snow. "I'd rather you didn't freeze to death before we got home, Nicole."

"I'll be fine."

"Jeans and a sweatshirt," he ordered, leaving no room for argument. He knew for a fact that she'd brought appropriate clothing; he'd found it when he'd rummaged through her suitcase looking for something to cover and soothe her after she'd woken from her nightmare.

"I only brought those in case we ended up screaming at each other and I didn't want you looking at me."

"I still would have been looking at you," Eric corrected. "I would have been thinking about ways to get you out of those clothes, but that would have happened with pretty much anything you could have worn."

"Uh-huh," said Nicole dubiously. "The last time you were angry at me—"

"I used to have this fantasy about throwing you down on one of the tables in my grandmother's pub."

"Back alleys _and_ tables in the middle of his family's restaurant. Kinky," remarked Nicole drily, but she dressed as he had suggested anyway.

"When we went to the Vatican, I fantasized that you were in my room with me," he said quietly as she dressed. "Just helping me get ready. Helping me face this thing I was afraid of."

"I would have, if you'd let me. That was the only thing in the world I wanted to do."

"I know. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring it up. I just… wanted you to know that you aren't always naked when I think of you."

Nicole looked him straight in the eyes before grabbing his hand and leading him outside. "You pretty much always are naked when I think of you," she returned, and he couldn't help laughing.

* * *

He hadn't properly used a camera in over two years. He'd meant to capture the sunrise over the ocean each day since he'd been set free, but he and Nicole had always found better things to do when the sunrise rolled around.

Without his direction, Nicole posed herself in the same rocky cove where they'd sat when he'd told her that he thought her son might be alive.

She was the same, but she was different.

Decades ago, she'd worn a skimpy pink-and-black swimsuit as she'd posed on a rainbow-striped towel.

Today, there was nothing but her gray sweatshirt protecting her from the hard rocks.

Then, the sand had burned under his bare knees as he'd knelt to get the shot that would make his name as a fashion photographer.

Now, the wind off the water whipped through him and reminded him that winter was never far away. The seasons came so much more quickly after almost twenty years.

Then, she had pouted at him, both overly studied and seductive.

Now, she watched him with a wise honesty that he hadn't known had been missing then— and that was more seductive than any pout could have been.

Then, she had skipped and danced on the beach and he had chased her, art imitating life.

Now, she was still and let him come to her with a confidence that had been hard-won.

Then, it had been a shock to him when they had kissed on the beach and made love in the shower upon returning to the hotel.

Now, both of those things had happened more times than he could count and the transition from shock to solace had not made them any less special.

He put down his camera and leaned in for the kiss. "Thank you," he told her.

"You got the shot you wanted?"

"Yeah," he said. "At least, I hope so."

"Do you want me closer to the ocean?" She moved to take off her shoes and roll up her jeans. "If you're trying to recreate that Titan shoot, we need to—"

He covered her hands with his. "I'm not trying to recreate it. Just… invoke it."

"I think it's sufficiently invoked."

"Me too." He knelt before her, the way he had for _that_ photograph, the one Titan had plastered on billboards and fliers and the sides of buses. It had remained on the front page of his portfolio until the day he'd switched from fashion photography to the more serious work that had taken him to the Congo and the priesthood and back to Nicole. "I was also hoping to get a picture of you on the day you agreed to marry me."

Nicole gasped, as if she somehow hadn't expected this, as if she hadn't _just_ given him the ring herself.

"I love you, Nicole," he said because it couldn't be said enough. "You have been my muse and my greatest fear and my safest place and what my grandfather would have called his _mavourneen_. When I was growing up, my father and my grandfathers and my uncles taught that you don't ask a woman to share your life unless you're sure that you can support her and protect her. I'm not sure of that, and that might not be fair to you, and I wouldn't blame you if you said no." Nicole was shaking her head, but the smile plastered on her face left Eric quite sure that she wasn't saying no. "There's a photographer named Paul Caponigro. He said 'All that I have achieved are these dreams locked in silver.' My best artistic achievement was— you know the picture. You were there. It was my dream, you and me. I'm not putting it off again. I'm not waiting. I don't want my dream locked in silver. I want to live it every single day. Will you marry me?"

She held out her hand, and at long last the ring was back where it belonged.

"Yes, Eric," she said. "Yes, yes, of course, yes. I will marry you. No matter what happens, I will marry you."

 _ **Eight.  
**_

As Nicole and Eric passed through airport security, he glanced at the arrivals board above their heads and noticed with surprise that it was his birthday. He forgot almost immediately, though; he was overwhelmed by a rush of jealousy as a TSA agent patted Nicole down. Nicole went from angry to amused when she caught a glimpse of his face, and her good mood didn't die until they had reached Salem.

"Do you want to come to my mom's house with me?" Eric asked when he had carried Nicole's suitcase into her apartment. She had tried two separate times to take the bag from him, but he liked the normalcy of carrying it for her. It made him feel like the young man he had been once, trying desperately to impress the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Anything he could do to make Nicole's life easier was something he wanted to do, no matter how small it was.

Nicole kissed him. "No. I've had you to myself all this time. Your family can have you for a few hours. All night, even. Just text if you decide you aren't coming home."

"Home." Eric glanced around the apartment. It was Nicole's home, all right; he knew with a disconcerting pang that he hadn't really had a home for quite some time.

"We'll get a place that's yours and mine just as soon as we can," Nicole said as if she could read his mind. "The place we talked about, with the white picket fence. And the snowblower, since you're so fascinated with having one of those."

"And the office with the fancy desk for when you're taking down the powerful people who thought they could hide from you," said Eric.

"And extra bedrooms. Even if we never put a little boy to bed in one of them, sooner or later someone from your screwed up family— excuse me, your wonderful family— is going to come to you begging for help, and when that happens I will be a perfect host."

"That's very generous," said Eric, trying and failing to hide his smile. "You're sure you don't want to come?"

"They've missed you so much. I know how they feel. Just go."

Eric went.

* * *

The door of his mother's townhouse flew open before he could knock, and he was smothered with hugs from both Carrie and Belle. "Happy birthday," they chorused in his ears.

 _Right_. It might have slipped his mind, but it hadn't slipped theirs. There were presents on the couch and a cake on the table and even a banner hanging above the mantlepiece.

His mother hugged him, too, and then his father, and John and Brady and Shawn and Austin all slapped him on the back. It almost made him dizzy to be touched by so many people so quickly. In prison, the inmates had been quite careful not to touch one another at all, so concerned had they been with the prospect of being sent away from the minimum security facility. Nicole had had her hands all over him for the past week, but Nicole was precisely one person, and his family suddenly seemed like so many. All of his siblings were present and accounted for except one.

"Did you talk to Sami today?" he asked. He didn't have a way of reaching Sami, and Sami always got annoyed when they weren't together for their birthday, let alone when he didn't even call. Truth be told, he didn't really like it himself. Sami was a pain in the ass, but Sami was his twin sister and they weren't supposed to have birthdays without so much as a hello.

"We haven't been able to get her," said Belle. "You know how she is. Out of range for days, sometimes weeks."

"Sorry, Eric," said Roman, and he sounded truly sorry. "I know neither one of you likes it when you can't be together for your birthday."

"I don't get why that's a problem," said Brady with a painfully forced levity that moved Eric to his core. His and Sami's birthday meant it was also Isabella's death day. "Don't you want the whole day to yourself for once?"

"I guess it saves time for everyone." Eric glanced at John. "No one had to take me to the park the day before." Belle and Brady looked slightly perplexed; Carrie and Marlena beamed at the memory. John looked touched, and a guard deep inside Eric dropped in response. "Nicole told me that Abe told her that you used to send Sami and Carrie off to get manicures so you could talk to me without them. I didn't even realize it until she pointed it out. Thank you."

"Abraham has a big mouth," said John.

"Where's Nicole, anyway?" asked Brady. "Did you two break up already?"

"Brady!" reprimanded Carrie and Belle.

Brady rolled his eyes. "Did you?" he asked.

"No," said Eric. "We're never breaking up again." He wished that Nicole were with him. He would have held up her left hand to prove to them just how committed he and Nicole were to each other.

"Good," said what felt like the entirety of the room. Eric glanced around warily. The last time his family had supported his relationship with Nicole, his father had still disapproved of his mother's connection to John and Belle and Brady hadn't been old enough to have opinions that anyone took seriously.

"Since when are any of you other than Brady okay with that?" he demanded.

"Nicole has shown a great deal of personal growth over the past two years," Marlena decreed.

"She was terrific when I asked her to come to your probation hearing," said Carrie. "Helpful and graceful."

"I don't think I ever said anything about Nicole to you," said Belle. "I don't know why you're looking at me."

The world was a strange and ever-changing place.

"Don't worry," said Brady, noticing Eric's befuddled look. "I'm sure Sami still hates her, if that makes things seem more normal to you. That's not going to change. The last time Sami approved of anyone I was dating was… I can't remember that far back. She still calls Chloe 'Opera Bitch.'"

"Still?" asked Belle with real irritation. Eric had to remind himself that Chloe had been Belle's friend before she had ever been Brady's wife. "I swear, the next time I talk to Sami, she's hearing about that."

"Before or after you tell her to give the DiMeras their money back?" asked Eric.

He wanted the words back before they'd left his mouth. He was _good_ at this, good at saying the right thing, good at being the sibling everyone loved.

But he was out of practice, and he was pissed at what he was sure the DiMeras had done to Nicole and her son, and he hated that Belle had entangled herself with them.

The blood drained from Belle's face. "Let me make sure the sparkling cider's in the fridge," she said, turning on her heel and stalking into the kitchen.

Marlena announced that Eric had to open his presents, and she ushered everyone into the living room.

"Don't worry," Brady whispered in Eric's ear, his voice harsh and familiar. "It wasn't really you. Kate Roberts keeps telling her what a terrible lawyer she is because Carrie got you out and she didn't. She doesn't like the influence Belle has over Chad. Between that and knowing that none of us really approve of her working with the DiMeras, Tink's sensitive to everything. Feels like she fell off her pedestal."

Eric could identify.

"I wouldn't let her do anything to help me when I was arrested," he told Brady. "It wasn't her fault. And she was the one who got me out of Statesville after the prison break."

"I've said that to her and she knows it," said Brady. He cast a glance at the rest of their family. They were temporarily distracted. "How are things between you and Nicole? Really?"

"Good," said Eric. "Better than good."

"How much better than good?"

Eric dropped his voice to a whisper. "I asked her to marry me and she said yes."

He shouldn't have blurted it out without telling Nicole and he knew it. It was his second failing in as many minutes.

Brady barely concealed his glee.

"Don't tell anyone!" Eric hissed.

"Not even Sami the next time she's yelling at me and I want her to yell at you instead?"

"No!"

Brady pulled Eric into a hard, laughing bear hug. "When you do tell her, make sure to get it on camera. We'll put it on Claire's YouTube page, it'll go viral, and we'll be her favorite uncles."

"That _is_ important."

Brady nodded and released Eric. "Come on, you have presents."

Before they reached the stack of presents, though, the door flew open.

Eric had never met Anna Fredericks before, but he knew who she was at once, without knowing how he knew.

"Mom!" exclaimed Carrie. "I told you that tonight—"

"Yes, yes, your brother's big welcome home party." Anna's eyes swept over Eric and he tried not to laugh. "I haven't seen you since you were a toddler."

Part of Eric wanted to voice his apology for repressing those memories, but he had said two stupid things so far and did not want to see if the third time was a charm.

"Welcome home, Eric," Anna continued. "You and I have business to conduct."

"I can't imagine what that might be," said Eric as politely as he could. He decided not to bring up the fact that Anna had taken EJ's money to kidnap his niece Sydney and allow Sami to think that she was dead. He decided to ignore the way Brady was shaking with silent laughter beside him. Apparently Brady already knew Anna.

"You're a photographer. You need work. I happen to have a hand in the fashion industry and I have an emergency shoot next Tuesday."

"I haven't done that kind of work in years," he said. The vicious shallowness of professional fashion had gnawed away at him until he'd shifted gears and begun photographing war zones instead.

"But you haven't done work of any kind in years, and you're happy for the opportunity from someone who doesn't care where you've been."

"Because you'd be the biggest hypocrite ever if you were going to judge Eric," snapped Carrie. "Goodbye, Mom."

"I'll do it," said Eric. Anna was right. He couldn't expect many job offers to fall into his lap, and if he and Nicole were going to make their dreams come true, he needed an income from somewhere— even from an industry that was overall rather repulsive.

"Good," said Anna. "Give me your number, and I'll let you get back to your party."

Eric obliged, and Anna vanished as quickly as she had come.

Eric stared at Carrie, the big sister who had always been there to pick him up from school and teach him how to ice skate and represent him at his bail hearing without a word about what he'd done. It suddenly seemed as if he had never known her at all. "That's your mother," he said flatly.

Carrie slammed a wrapped present against his chest. "You understand why I lived with Dad and Marlena."

 **Nine.**

Nicole jumped in alarm when her phone buzzed with a text. She fully expected a message that Eric was going to spend the night with his family after all, and she dreaded the thought of being apart from him for so many hours.

"Get a grip, Walker," she muttered to herself. She was a grown woman and wasn't going to morph into the most obnoxious sort of teenage girl simply because Eric Brady was back in her life and her bed.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the text was from Brady rather than Eric.

 _It's Eric's birthday. He didn't remember, so I assume you didn't either._

She swore aloud. She knew full well what day Eric's birthday was. She just hadn't known what day today was.

She supposed that greeting him at the door in her most elaborate lingerie would make up for a lot.

Brady had apparently waited until the party was breaking up to text her (that might not have been his fault— Marlena struck Nicole as the sort of person who would ban all use of phones at her parties), because Eric's newly minted key turned in the lock just as Nicole was finishing her makeup.

She dashed through the living room and flung her arms around him. It was a special kind of erotic to be mostly naked while he was fully clothed.

He laughed, which wasn't precisely what she was going for, but she would take it anyway. "Hi."

"Brady texted me," she admitted.

"Of course he did." Eric pulled back curiously. "You aren't mad?"

"Why would I be mad?" Eric's eyes flickered. Whatever he had been afraid of Brady telling her, Brady hadn't told her. He'd been a priest, and he'd been in prison, but Eric still had no poker face. Sometimes Nicole wondered how he survived. "What could Brady have told me that would have made me mad?" she asked pointedly.

"I accidentally told him that we were engaged. I'm sorry. Although we didn't technically say we were keeping it a secret."

It was the justification that irritated her. He'd known that telling people in general, and Brady in particular, was a big deal. That was why he'd thought she would be upset. And Brady would tell Chloe because Brady was fundamentally incapable of not telling everything to the woman with whom he was currently sleeping, so Nicole wouldn't get to break the news to either of her best friends. It wasn't as if she had anyone else who mattered to her, not the way Eric did.

Not that Eric cared. Eric always had reasons that Eric was right. Eric made Nicole jump through impossible hoops and beg for forgiveness and apologize for failing to meet standards he'd known all along that she could never meet. Eric didn't make himself jump through hoops.

He apologized prettily for the double standard, sometimes, but…

She remembered the last time they'd planned to marry, when he'd refused to make love to her without marriage and then refused to marry her without the blessing of the Church. Always his rules. Always his way.

She stomped into her bedroom and threw her robe over the lingerie.

"You _are_ mad," said Eric.

"You know I'm still divorced in the eyes of the Catholic Church, right?" she asked coolly.

Eric looked at her as if he had no idea what she was talking about.

"Divorce," said Nicole more slowly. "Been married lots and lots of times, really, and God thinks I'm damaged goods so you can't have the perfect wedding to me."

"Any wedding you're at will be perfect," said Eric. "I was going to marry you in Vegas last time. I would have married you on the beach the minute I proposed if I could have come up with a marriage license and an officiant."

That was true, but she wasn't going to let Eric win the argument that they'd only sort of had. Instead, she opened her closet and removed the box that had been waiting there for over a month.

"I didn't completely forget your birthday," she said, and handed it to him.

The leather jacket was black and brown and just edgy enough. It was absolutely beautiful. She had seen it in a store window at Salem Place and thought immediately of Eric.

"You wear your gray one all the time," she said by way of explanation. "This is just in case one day you aren't in a gray mood."

"I don't think I'll be in a gray mood very often if I'm going to be married to you."

It would have sounded so corny coming from any other man that she would have laughed him out of the room.

It worked for Eric.

Her nervous energy dissipated as quickly as it had come. "Try it on," she told him, then put one hand on his arm to stop him from pulling it over his sweater. "Not like that. I want to see you wearing the jacket and nothing else."

It was a very good birthday for both of them.

* * *

The next morning, Nicole summoned Brady and Chloe to the apartment.

"We need to tell them everything," she told Eric, wondering how she could have been angry about a little thing like news of their engagement when they had a much more important secret. "You trust them about— about Danny Raphael, right?"

"Brady, yes," said Eric. "I barely know Chloe, but I trust you."

"You should get to know Chloe," said Nicole. For a moment, she let her mind run wild with thoughts of herself and Eric and Brady and Chloe raising their sons together in a tightly-knit extended family. "You can start appreciating Chloe today when you see how helpful she ends up being."

Chloe proved Nicole right as soon as she heard the story. Rather than expressing disbelief or murmuring platitudes, Chloe jumped to the practical.

"Register as foster parents," she said. "Do that now, while you're still looking for him. Just in case. Don't wait."

"I doubt that either one of us qualifies as this point," said Eric.

Chloe shook her head. "Trust someone who was in the foster system. The standards aren't that high. Anyway, there are some pretty serious extenuating circumstances. You just want to make it easy for them to put him with you while you're getting through the red tape of legally proving that he is who you think he is."

"If he is who you think he is," said Brady quietly. "Nic, you know I want this for you. I know that this seems like the DiMera M.O. But it's also completely possible—"

"That my baby really did die," Nicole completed, because she didn't want Brady acting like she was too weak and crazy to accept what was still, most likely, the truth.

"There's an easy way to prove that one way or the other."

Eric jumped in before Nicole had the chance. "We're not exhuming the grave yet. The minute we do, anyone who has any kind of interest in this knows we're looking for something. We need to keep the element of surprise for as long as we can."

Chloe leaned on Brady's shoulder. "Stefano's dead."

"Maybe," said Eric neutrally.

"He's dead," Chloe repeated, and Brady nodded. "Chad is in control of the DiMera businesses, and the last thing Chad is interested in doing is getting involved in his father's more disgusting projects."

"And what about Andre?" asked Nicole. "You do remember when he kidnapped half the town and faked their deaths, right? I know the two of you were in Vienna for most of it, but I wasn't, and it wasn't pretty. He had a girl he thought of as his own daughter stuffed into a turkey-shaped piñata for Thanksgiving. We're going to track down every child on the list Billie gave us and check them out before we exhume the grave, even though exhuming the grave could give us a definitive answer right now. We can't take the risk of someone taking him even further away and making him even harder to find. I won't take that risk with my son if there's even the slightest chance that he's alive."

Eric's hand tightened on Nicole's arm.

"All right," agreed Brady. "We're here for whatever you need."

"We'll do anything," Chloe promised. She took Nicole's left hand in both of her own, acknowledging wordlessly the engagement ring that Nicole wore. "Your family is our family."

Nicole was half-afraid to hope that it was true.

 _ **Ten.**_

To Nicole's delight, one of her contacts from the Shady Hills investigation was able to direct her to another contact in the foster care system. Within a week, with only minimal lawbreaking, she had the current address of the four-year-old boy known as Darius Michael.

It was late at night when she got her final confirmation; Eric had vanished into the bedroom hours before. She expected him to be asleep, but instead found him with camera equipment spread across the bed and a stack of fashion magazines at his feet on the floor.

"Be careful," said Eric, not looking up when he heard her enter the room.

"Put that away," she returned. "We're going to Chicago tomorrow morning. We're going to see Darius. I found out where he lives."

"That's great." He disentangled himself from the equipment and pulled her into a celebratory hug. "But I can't go with you tomorrow."

Nicole pulled away with a glare. "What do you mean, you can't go?"

"I mean I have a photoshoot." He gestured at the magazines and the cameras. "Carrie's mother's company."

"This happened when?"

"The day we came back. My birthday."

"And you didn't tell me?"

"We got distracted. You were already mad at me."

"You still should have told me!" she snapped. "You don't even like that kind of work anymore. You think it's shallow. That's why you switched over to journalism in the first place."

"This pays better," said Eric bluntly. "If we're going to follow through on all of those plans we made, we need money."

"I have money!"

"I'm not going to live off of your divorce settlements, and even if I were okay with that, I need to look stable if we get into some kind of custody fight for your son. This job fell into my lap, and if I can prove that I've still got it there will be more where it came from."

"Of course you've still got it. You were brilliant. You _are_ brilliant," said Nicole begrudgingly. "But you should have told me. You could have told me tonight when you were preparing."

"You were in a trance tracking down Darius. I couldn't interrupt you. Look, ask Brady or Chloe to go with you."

Nicole didn't want Brady or Chloe. She wanted Eric.

And she wanted to see Darius tomorrow, not the next day.

And she wanted Eric to admit that he should have told her about the job.

"I should have told you," said Eric at last.

Nicole was only slightly mollified.

She spent a sleepless night counting the minutes until she could call Chloe and ask her to meet after Chloe dropped Parker off at school.

* * *

"That's wonderful," said Chloe when Nicole told her that she knew where Darius was. "Do you want to go right now? Tate's nanny can pick Parker up from school if we're not back. If we can get a strand of his hair or something, I'll get my dad's hospital to run the DNA test." She laughed. "I'll put out a story that I'm pregnant and I'm not sure whether the baby is Brady's. After what happened with Parker, everyone will believe me. No one will think it has anything to do with you or figure out what you're looking for."

"I can wait another day for Eric to come with me," said Nicole. She didn't know how to explain that she needed Eric with her. She had lived most of her life without Eric. Eric hadn't been the father of either of the babies she had lost. He hadn't been the man who had hidden the loss of her little girl, or the man who had claimed paternity of her little boy, or the doctor who had made certain that her last pregnancy had remained as private as possible.

Chloe didn't seem to need an explanation. Chloe seemed to think it was perfectly normal that Nicole was suddenly unable to function without Eric, even when she had to do something vitally important, while Eric didn't bother to keep Nicole in the loop about career decisions or telling their best friends about their engagement.

"Are you and Brady happy?" Nicole asked. After the better part of a year spent playing matchmaker, she had stopped monitoring Brady and Chloe's relationship.

"Very," said Chloe.

"And Parker and Tate?"

"I love Tate. He's very easy to love. Brady is great with Parker. Tate pesters Parker sometimes, but I think it's good for Parker in a way, you know? I wish I'd had a sister growing up. Of course I love Joy, but I was an adult when she was born. It's different."

"Parker and Tate are going to be brothers? Does that mean—"

"Not yet," said Chloe. "But soon. If everything keeps going well, soon. We can't all get engaged the minute we're in the same room," she teased, gesturing at the ring on Nicole's finger.

Nicole twisted the ring uncomfortably.

"No," said Chloe. "You're having second thoughts?"

"He's never been married," said Nicole. "I don't know if he knows what he's saying when he says he wants to be married to me." Before she knew it, she was explaining everything that Eric had done to annoy her in the past week. When she finished, Chloe was hiding a smile.

"This is funny to you?" Nicole demanded.

"A little bit," said Chloe nonchalantly. "I have some recent experience with falling in love with your ex. You sort of jolt from zero to honeymoon to married for ten years in no time flat."

"You didn't jump in with Brady the way I did with Eric."

"Not officially. I mean, I certainly wasn't going to tell you, since you were so fixated on getting us together."

Nicole shrugged. "Your taste is bad and his is worse. You both needed help."

"I was worried," said Chloe. "Brady doesn't like to be alone."

Nicole almost snorted. That was the understatement of the decade. That was why when Brady and Theresa had broken up, Nicole had gotten in a car with Brady and driven around Salem before she'd even had a chance to wash Eric's blood off of her stomach. That was why she'd agreed to sit with him all night on a park bench when he and Kristen had broken up the first time.

"When Brady and I were married, my career took off and he was alone a lot in a city where he didn't have his own family or friends," Chloe continued. "He tried to fix the way he felt with cocaine and that's been a problem for him ever since. I didn't want to be responsible for that again. I still have a career. I have a child. I know that there will still be times when we don't see each other as much as we'd like."

"If you're willing to be based in Salem—" Nicole began, but Chloe waved off the defense.

"I agree. He admits that he thought he could do something he just couldn't do. It would be different now that we have the boys, anyway. But that wasn't all. You know he plows headfirst into a new relationship the day after the last relationship ended. Theresa tried to kill John, and she framed Brady, and she blackmailed the woman Brady was with to leave town, and he still wanted to marry her because it was better than being by himself. How do I know he loves me, and he isn't just overlooking major red flags because he doesn't like being alone?"

"He loves you."

"I think he does," Chloe agreed. "But that's why we're going slow. You worry about Eric never being married. I worry about Brady taking marriage too lightly, although at the same time he kind of takes it too seriously. You know he's afraid marrying him is a death sentence, right? Because of Madison and Arianna?"

Nicole nodded. She'd heard that before.

"I helped do that to him, back when we were younger and I decided it would be kinder to let him think I was dead than to take the chance that he'd stay with me out of guilt when he saw the scars on my face."

"And then I made the whole thing a million times worse in every way."

"You really did," agreed Chloe. "But most of it was on us. We were so young. We made mistakes we wouldn't make now, but we're still worried about them. Maybe it's like that for you and Eric too. He should have told you about the job no matter what else was going on. It doesn't mean that he doesn't understand that you have to make decisions together because he didn't, though. It's probably a stronger signal that he took a job he doesn't even like because he knows it will make him look better if you have to deal with the foster care system or adoption law. He's right about that, you know."

"How did you get so smart?" Nicole demanded.

Chloe flicked her hair behind her ears and preened. "I've always been smart. I was my high school valedictorian even though there was this kid in our class who was an actual genius. Pretty sure he has a software company now."

"But I bet he gives lousy relationship advice."

"He did go out with Mimi Lockhart, so probably," said Chloe with a snicker.

"Let's not relive high school," said Nicole hastily. She didn't have Chloe's relatively mundane high school experience of boyfriends and grades and rivalries. She'd been the Locker Room Lolita.

"Let's not," agreed Chloe fervently. "Let's talk about what you're going to say when you see Darius and his foster parents."

Nicole couldn't believe that there had been a time in her life that she hadn't liked Chloe.

 **Eleven**.

Nicole and Eric left for Chicago at dawn the next morning.

It took Eric only the smallest fraction of a second to know that his instinct about Darius been correct.

As they passed by the house, Eric caught sight of half a dozen young children playing in the backyard behind a chain link fence. The way the little boy walked and the shape of his face were enough, and when they got close enough to see the child's eyes— precisely the color and shape of Nicole's— Eric was more convinced than ever.

The yard was bare but for a pile of bricks and cinderblocks stacked against the side of the house near the back door. There were no toys to be seen, and the children, left to their own devices, were playing a brutal variation on tag.

Eric and Nicole stood beside the fence and watched for a moment. None of the children took any notice of them.

"Do his eyes look like mine?" Nicole asked hesitantly.

"I think they do," said Eric, underselling it the startling resemblance a bit. The same fear that had haunted him since Jimmy had first suggested that Nicole's son might not be dead welled up anew. He couldn't give Nicole false hope. He couldn't leave Nicole feeling so distraught that she wanted to take her own life.

"I do, too," said Nicole. Her voice shook slightly, but when Eric tore his gaze away from Darius to look at her, she had successfully wiped all trace of emotion from her face.

"What's the plan?" he asked. They had discussed a few options during the drive to Chicago, but they hadn't expected to have an opportunity to see Darius without going through his foster parents. What kind of parent left six small children unsupervised outside, especially on a cold autumn day?

Chloe's knowing voice echoed in his mind. _Trust someone who was in the foster system. The standards aren't that high._

"I'm going to go around to the door, lie my ass off about being a journalist here to interview Mrs. Cherry, and see if I can get them to call some of the kids inside. If they won't, I'll bribe her. She'll bite. Chloe says a lot of foster parents are only in it for the money, and considering that these kids are out here entertaining themselves in the cold and not inside having story time or something, I think we know what kind of people we're dealing with."

"All right." Eric put his hand on the small of Nicole's back, intending to walk with her to the front door.

"No," said Nicole firmly. "You're the worst liar I've ever seen in my life. You always have been."

Eric made a face, remembering Orpheus and Xander discussing that very thing in Statesville a year before. He hadn't known at the time who Orpheus was, or how Orpheus had known that he had always been a lousy liar. He had only sensed danger, and had had to learn later that this was the man who had taken his mother from him in those years when he had really needed a mother. His life would have been different without Orpheus' interference. His life would have been better without Orpheus' interference.

And now someone had done the same thing to Darius and Nicole, and it made him as furious as he had ever been in his life.

"Hey," said Nicole, turning on her heel and running a hand down the side of Eric's face. "You don't need to be angry about it. I love that you're a terrible liar. I always have."

"I wasn't—" Eric began to explain, but then he realized that Nicole didn't need to be burdened with his thoughts at the moment. Instead, he kissed her. "Work your magic," he told her. "I'll stay here and supervise. Someone should."

"Got that right." With a last caress, Nicole disappeared around the corner and Eric redoubled his efforts to get to know Nicole's son through a chain link fence.

A few minutes passed before it occurred to Eric that someone ought to have been suspicious of a grown man staring hungrily at a group of children. For all that his family thought of him as the sensitive one who wouldn't lose his temper like Brady or Sami, he was still taller and stronger than most men. Perhaps someone had been afraid to confront him and had called the police instead? A visit from the police would not improve Nicole's chances of getting herself formally introduced to Darius or learning anything about his situation.

He took a step toward the car, thinking that he would look at least slightly less suspicious if he waited there, but his eyes returned unbidden to Darius. It was natural to pick him out from the tangled clump of children. He was used to watching Nicole, both openly and surreptitiously. Whatever part of his brain had been trained to do that naturally clicked into gear at the sight of Darius, whose skip had the same hitch as Nicole's and who flung back his shoulders in defiance the same way she did.

There was that squaring of his shoulders now, Eric noticed.

One of the smallest children— a boy no older than Tate, a boy who certainly shouldn't have been playing with the others without some sort of adult mediation— had bitten one of the biggest. The older boy shoved not-Tate to the ground, and Darius stormed into the fray. The older boy was bigger than Darius, too, but it wasn't an entirely unfair fight.

Eric's hands gripped the fence until the wire netting imprinted itself on his skin. He could climb the fence and fling the children off of each other in less time than it would take Darius to land a punch. (Darius' first swing was as wild and wide as Brady's always was. Eric was going to have to teach him how to hit properly. At least Darius had the excuse of being five; Brady was probably beyond hope.)

Scaling the fence was Not In The Plan, though. If it had been, they would have simply kidnapped Darius as soon as they'd seen him. Did that even count as kidnapping? He remembered the campy movie Sami had made him watch over and over in middle school:

 _You are trying to kidnap what I have rightfully stolen._

It played better on a film about sword fights and princesses than it played in real life with a couple of ex-cons and a megalomaniac.

The biggest boy directed a kick at not-Tate that made not-Tate shriek and enraged Darius. "I told you to leave Matty alone!" snarled Darius, high and shrill and determined. Eric recognized the tone from having once been Darius' age.

 _Leave Sami alone! Leave Carrie alone!_

It never occurred to him that he might be wrong about which boy was which. It only occurred to him to wonder what the hell had happened to make Darius think of not-Tate (Matthew?) as his brother. He understood that something must have happened and that it likely could not be un-done once done; woe be to anyone who tried to tell Carrie or Sami or Eric that Brady wasn't their brother.

Darius scrambled toward the pile of bricks and cinderblocks, which, to Eric's relief, they had all previously given a wide berth. Nothing good was going to come of this.

Eric put one toe through the mesh of the fence about eighteen inches off the ground.

Darius put all of his slight weight behind the cinderblock on top of the pile and shoved in the direction of his enemy.

With one movement, Eric vaulted over the fence.

Darius knocked the cinderblock onto his own foot and howled with pain. Two boys and two girls fled to the far corners of the yard. Only Matthew stayed beside Darius and began to cry himself.

Eric lifted the cinderblock off of Darius, sparing a moment to be impressed by Darius' determination. The cinderblock probably weighed more than the boy himself did.

Then Eric pulled Darius into his arms, taking care not to jostle his injured foot. He winced at the sight of the dent in the beat-up sneaker Darius wore.

"I know it hurts," he whispered, rubbing a circle on Darius' back. "The doctor can fix it, though, and you'll feel so much better tomorrow." _Tomorrow_ seemed unconscionably far away, but from the look of things he doubted that he could promise relief any time sooner.

Darius wrapped his arms around Eric's next and buried his teary face in Eric's shoulder as if he had known Eric all his life.

With an effort, Eric knelt down and tilted Matthew's face toward him. "Darius will be all right, I promise."

"No," said Matthew, and sputtered something else in toddler-ese that Eric couldn't understand.

Eric was already in way over his head when the door banged open to reveal an older woman carrying a teakettle, followed closely by Nicole.

" _What happened?"_ Mrs. Cherry's voice echoed to the far corners of the yard. Four small faces peeked out of their none-too-hidden hiding places and the woman summoned them forward.

"What happened?" Nicole asked more quietly.

"He knocked a cinderblock onto his foot. He's the luckiest kid in the world if it's not broken. Did you call 911?"

"I will," said Nicole, and she deftly put her phone to her ear and gave the dispatcher the address. With her other hand, she reached out to caress Matthew, who was pounding on Eric's leg and attempting to bite him through his pants. "What's your name, Sweetie?" Nicole asked Matthew in the tone she reserved for small children. Eric usually heard it directed at Tate or Parker.

"I think it's Matthew," Eric informed Nicole when she didn't get an answer. "Matty?"

"Matt?" Nicole tried. "That's you?" She got a giant nod of confirmation and held out her arms. Matthew flung himself into them. "And is this Darius?" she asked, gesturing to the boy Eric held. Another nod.

Eric marveled at Nicole's ability to focus on Matthew when she was so close to her own son. (They weren't even pretending any longer that Darius wasn't exactly who Eric had known he was from the moment he'd seen the name on Billie's list, were they?)

He wanted to find a way to switch places with Nicole. Darius was hurt and Darius needed his mother, but Darius clung to Eric in a way that made Eric worry that Darius would injure his foot even more if anyone tried to pry him out of Eric's arms.

Besides, a siren was already wailing in the distance and coming closer every minute.

"You did not call an ambulance!" Mrs. Cherry exclaimed. She shouted at the four remaining children to go to their rooms and take off their coats. The children obeyed instantly.

"His foot is broken, and you can't leave the other kids to get him to the emergency room," Eric pointed out.

She whirled toward Eric as if noticing him for the first time. "Who are you and what are you doing on my property?"

"He's my fiancé," Nicole answered quickly. "He was waiting for me to finish up."

"I jumped over the fence when I saw the accident. I'm sorry," said Eric, knowing he didn't sound contrite at all. He sounded judgmental even to his own ears. Nicole was right. He was a horrible liar.

Mrs. Cherry glowered some more, but by now the paramedics had arrived and Eric was able to ignore her in favor of explaining what had happened and attempting to interest Darius in the flashing lights. Darius was in too much pain to care, but let Eric hold his hand as the paramedics began to inspect the damage.

"It's a foster care situation," one paramedic warned the other, and Nicole smoothly began to explain to Mrs. Cherry that she knew what a difficult situation this was and that she was so sorry that her fiancé had called the ambulance without checking with her.

"We'd never forgive ourselves if these children had to be uprooted because of our mistake," Nicole continued.

Nicole, unlike Eric, was a _great_ liar.

He was glad that in their old age she mostly used her powers for good.

"Which hospital are you going to?" she asked one paramedic when the other had busied herself with Mrs. Cherry.

"Lurie Children's," he answered.

"That's not one of those emergency rooms where he'll be waiting for hours, is it?"

"They'll take him right away."

Eric was glad Nicole had thought of asking.

"If the two of you want to be helpful, you can vamoose before they start asking questions," Mrs. Cherry hissed in Nicole's ear.

Eric was sure that Nicole would put up a fight, but she nodded and transferred Matthew to Mrs. Cherry's arms. Matthew had grown quiet as Nicole held him, but he began to wail afresh when she let go.

Eric gave Darius' hand a final squeeze before stroking the soft, blond hair just hard enough to pull out a few strands— just enough for an unofficial DNA test.

Nicole gestured for Eric to follow her, and the two of them cut through the house and left the area together.

Nicole hadn't even touched Darius.

She had barely looked at him.

She brushed off Eric's compliments on her quick thinking and his reassurances that Darius would be fine.

"I know he'll be fine," said Nicole coolly. "I wouldn't have let them take him if I didn't know they were taking him to the right place. I would have forced the ambulance to take him a hundred miles away if I had to, like I did when Kristen drugged you."

Her phone was in her hand again. "Brandon?" she asked. "Please pick up."

" _Hi, Nicky."_ Brandon's voice was clear enough for Eric to hear it easily. _"I've only got a minute."_

"You're still working at the Lurie Children's Hospital, right?"

" _Yes_."

"They're bringing a little boy into the emergency room right now. His name is Darius and he's about five years old. He was living in a foster home and he hurt his foot. I need you to spend as much time as you can with him and do whatever it takes to keep him in the hospital. Any kind of hold you can swing. Any kind of investigation you can open. This is more important than anything I have ever asked you for in our lives."

" _All right,"_ said Brandon without a hint of an argument. _"I'll do the best I can, Nicky."_

"Thank you," said Nicole, but Brandon had already severed the connection. "I don't have to blow my cover or look like I'm sticking my nose where it doesn't belong," Nicole told Eric crisply. "I have someone on the inside. They'd call a youth counselor in anyway, so all Brandon has to do is get himself assigned to Darius."

"Wow," said Eric.

"Brandon didn't even ask me for a reason. He's always been like that. Protective without any conditions."

 _He won't need to ask any questions once he gets a look at Darius' face,_ Eric thought but didn't say. "Brothers are like that," he offered instead.

"We didn't know until we were adults that Abe was Brandon's biological father," she said. "And when we found out, it wasn't like we all of a sudden loved each other half as much because we had half as many genes in common."

"Of course not."

"You and Brady, technically you're stepbrothers, but you'd never call each other that. Okay, Brady did once but he was out of his mind at the time and he apologized."

Eric hadn't needed the reminder. "What are you getting at, Nicole?"

"The woman who claims that she gave birth to Darius, her name is April. Matthew is her son. As far as Darius is concerned, Matty is his brother."

"I'd noticed."

"Darius is an easy kid. Matthew isn't. When Matthew gets thrown out of a foster home, Darius goes with him because Darius has told his social worker over and over that he is not going to be separated from his brother."

"If we can find a way to take them both, we'll take them both," said Eric.

For the first time since they'd arrived at the Cherry home, Nicole showed real emotion: relief and fear and hope and gratitude. "Are you sure? It's not what you signed up for."

"It's exactly what I signed up for," Eric promised.

 **Twelve.**

Nicole was a planner.

Her plans weren't always successful, to be sure. Her plan to accumulate money and power by styling herself as Mrs. Victor Kiriakis had led to years of virtual imprisonment at the old man's hand. Her intricate, long-term plan to fake a pregnancy and present EJ with his own daughter had landed her in an actual prison.

Her greatest disasters had followed temporary success. She had, briefly, enjoyed Victor's conversation and his intellect nearly as much as she'd enjoyed watching Sami and Kate cower in fear. The months she had spent as a family with Sydney and Johnny and EJ had been some of the best of her life, and she still treasured the memories—not to mention the friendship with Chloe that had grown out of their odd divvying up of Sami's children.

Now, more than ever, she wanted long term success.

So she planned.

She hadn't let herself look at Darius, let alone touch Darius, in the horrible expanse of frozen mud that passed as Mrs. Cherry's backyard. She had forced down the explosion of love that had threatened to overwhelm her when she'd unexpectedly seen her fiancé protectively watching over her son. She hadn't made any attempt to see Darius at the hospital. No one but her brother and her Eric and her best friends in the world would have any way of knowing what she was doing until it was done.

The short term was nothing. Temporary success was a thing of the past.

As Nicole drove herself and Eric back to Salem, she slowly steered the car down a side street.

"Why are you going this way?" asked Eric curiously.

"So that when someone asks us what we did today, we'll be able to give them an honest answer."

"We'll say we drove around a random neighborhood?"

"Nothing is random," said Nicole. She turned a corner.

Eric gasped. "Oh."

They were in front of the house that he had bought for her almost twenty years before. "It's still a good neighborhood. Still a cute house," said Nicole. "You always had good taste."

"Not for sale," Eric pointed out. "And on the small side if we're going to bring home two little boys right away."

"We'll just sneak out at night and steal their picket fence so we can put it up at our new place."

Eric's eyes looked wider and sadder than Nicole ever liked to see them. "I don't know if I want the fence anymore. Not after what we saw today."

"The fence was not the problem with that house," declared Nicole. "Tell me what else you'd change about this house to make it perfect for us now. Other than the size? It's still bigger than the places where Brandon and Taylor and I grew up, but I don't want to recreate that."

"I still like it," Eric admitted.

Nicole grabbed his hand. "So do I."

She was in the middle of a plan, so she wasn't going to indulge in a weepy fantasy about what would have happened if she had never married Lucas. She would never have wound up trying to kill the marriage to Lucas with a marriage to Victor; she would never have been shot by a thug aiming for Victor. There would never have been fertility issues at all, because she would have modeled for a few years before she and Eric agreed to start a family, and their children would be half-grown now…

She stepped on the gas and wound around the neighborhood until they came upon a house with a for-sale sign in the front yard.

Same neighborhood, same style, more room. She took out her phone and took a photograph of the sign so that she would be able to call the realtor later. Then, reconsidering, she parked. "Let's see if they'll let us look at it now," she suggested.

"Nicole," said Eric in the dumbfounded way he always did when he thought that she was marching a bit too much to her own drummer.

"They can say no. But we have to try. Seeing this house the way we did, so close to that other house might be a sign from God, you know."

"Nicole."

"God wants Darius and Matthew to have a safe home with a stable family as soon as possible. You can't possibly deny that."

Eric didn't respond, presumably because he knew that she was right. Instead, he opened his door and got out of the car. She waited for him to walk around the car and open her door for her, not because she wasn't perfectly capable of getting out of a car on her own but because Eric was the only man on the planet under 75 years old who believed in opening car doors and she had gotten to the point of enjoying it.

When he took her hand and tugged her to her feet, she was glad of the support for more practical reasons. The world spun around her too quickly, and for a horrible second she was afraid that she would throw up on the lawn of the house they hadn't quite decided to buy. It would not have been an auspicious beginning.

"Are you all right?" Eric had one hand on her arm and the other on her waist.

"It's all the fresh air," she joked. "I'm not a fan."

"You've had a rough day and you aren't dealing with it."

"I'll deal with it later," she promised. "Come on, let's ring the doorbell."

No one answered the doorbell, but they walked around the house and peeked into the windows.

"People do this," she told Eric.

"People with serious problems who belong in mental institutions except when they get a day pass for Thanksgiving do this," Eric returned.

The thought of Thanksgiving made her stomach lurch again. This time, she managed to hide her distress from Eric, who was taken with the furnished basement they could just make out through the window wells set in the ground. "If you want your own darkroom, that'll work," she said.

"Okay," Eric agreed. "Forward me that picture you took. I'll call the realtor and see how soon we can get a real tour. We'll go home and you'll lie down."

"Call the Office of Children and Family Services to see how long it will take to schedule a home visit after we move in, too, and give me that hair I know you took from Darius, and we have a deal," said Nicole.

* * *

Once they were back in her apartment, Nicole didn't let herself stroke the hair or twine it between her fingers or dwell on how it was the exact shade hers had been when she had been Darius' age. Instead, she summoned Chloe and asked for her help in getting a DNA test that appeared to have nothing to do with Nicole.

When Chloe had been dispatched on her errand, Nicole set to work tracking down Matthew's mother. Once again, her sources from the Shady Hills investigation proved invaluable. (If they survived this, she was definitely going to pitch a major investigation of the foster care system to Jennifer. Jennifer would go for it. She always liked the stories that mixed human interests and hard investigative journalism best.)

Eric reminded her that she'd promised to lie down, but she had one more call to make.

It was time to start the proceedings to exhume her son's grave.

One day passed before they got a tour of the house, made an offer, and arranged for an inspection. The money was mostly Nicole's, but she delegated all of the work to Eric and he made no objections.

That night Brandon called and told Nicole that Darius' toe had been shattered into so many pieces that the doctors weren't quite sure what to do other than manage his pain.

Two days passed before Chloe arrived with the news that Nicole's DNA and Darius' DNA were a match. Chloe cried. Nicole didn't.

That night Brandon called and told Nicole that he had been able to keep Darius in the hospital on suspicion of neglect. _And I didn't even have to stretch the truth, Nicky. He's going to be okay, but it could have been a lot worse._

Three days passed before Nicole finally got a location for Matthew's mother. She was in Statesville for a litany of crimes that all stemmed from her drug habit. Nicole didn't much want to go back there, but she didn't think that she was the best person for the job anyway. Instead, she asked Brady to use whatever means necessary to get a visit with April and ask her to request that Matthew and Darius be placed with Eric and Nicole.

That night Brandon showed up unannounced at her apartment door and demanded to know whether Darius was Nicole's son. Nicole told Brandon the truth. Brandon cried. Nicole didn't.

Four days passed before Nicole and Eric quietly told Carrie how they had spent their time since Eric's release from prison and asked her to prepare the paperwork to request an official DNA test on Darius. Carrie cried. Nicole didn't.

That night Brandon showed up in person, again, armed with the news that he had somehow managed to have Darius transferred to University Hospital. Nicole knew well how to sneak through the halls of that hospital to visit a patient without being seen. She refrained.

Five days passed before Eric told Nicole that he'd reached an agreement with the current owners of their new house to rent it for two months prior to the closing. They could move in immediately, and the whirlwind of purchasing furniture would have been fun if it had not been for the lingering nausea that had followed Nicole all week. She pushed the feeling aside and assumed that she would feel better once Darius was back where he belonged.

Six days passed before Brady reported that he would meet with April in Statesville within hours; Brandon announced that he had taken an unscheduled vacation, ostensibly to visit Abe and Theo but really to bring some consistency to Darius' life; and Carrie presented Nicole with an exhumation order.

* * *

"You don't have to go," Eric told Nicole as they got dressed the next morning. "Let Carrie and me handle it."

"I'm glad you're going to be there and Carrie is going to be there," said Nicole. "But this isn't happening without me."

"For the last week, you've delegated everything else to Chloe and Brady and Carrie and Brandon and me. You can let us handle this too. You've been overseeing everything, and you've done a great job."

"I don't delegate to you," Nicole injected quickly. "You're my partner and we split the work that needs to be done for our family. I definitely delegate to those other people, though."

Eric smiled, but he didn't laugh. "You're making yourself sick, Nicole. You've been living on crackers and ginger ale, and you're always exhausted because you don't sleep. You don't need to watch your child's grave being exhumed even if you already know that your child was never in it."

"Yes, I do need to be there, because he's my son. Danny." Her eyes flooded unexpectedly with the tears that hadn't come when Chloe had hugged her and Brandon had kissed her cheek and Carrie had grabbed both of her hands. She hadn't called her son Daniel Raphael since she'd seen Darius in person, or perhaps even before. He was a little boy, not an infant; he had a name that she had no business changing even if she wouldn't have chosen it herself.

Eric guided Nicole to the couch and pulled her onto his lap the way he'd done in the hotel at the beach when she'd woken from her nightmare.

"I wanted to name my daughter Sydney," she told him, as if he didn't already know. "I was stuck in Salem, running into people who hated me every minute of every day. I thought, wouldn't it be nice to run away to Australia? I'd always wanted to go there, anyway. It seemed like the farthest I could get from my life, and some parts of my life have been pretty bad. When I miscarried…" Tears ran faster down her face, and Eric held her more tightly, without prompting her to speak again. "I gave the same name to the baby I stole. In a way, it works. Sydney suits her, don't you think?"

"I can't imagine her being named anything else. Even Sami can't. She never tried to change it, and Sydney was young enough when Sami got her back that she could have."

"But I betrayed that other little girl. The one who never was. I made it like she never was."

"You loved her and you mourned for her and I'm sure she felt that."

"I could have left her her name. It's the other way around with Darius, Daniel Raphael. He's here. He has a name and he knows it's his name, and since it's not horrible I won't try to change it. I mean, I can't let Sami be classier than I am, right? But now he's—he's real. He has blond hair and a stubborn streak and he loves his little brother."

"And he hops the same way you do when he skips and he's incredibly brave and someone is going to have to teach him to throw a decent right hook," Eric added.

"And all of the little boys that he didn't turn out to be are gone. These last five years are gone. He didn't do any of those things that he would have done that would have made him Daniel Raphael instead of Darius Michael."

She remembered staring up at the house Eric had chosen for them and imagining how their lives would have unfolded if she had just trusted him not to blame her for what her father had done.

Unbidden, the image of Danny Raphael flying into her arms when she picked him up at Rafe's house after a long weekend filled the room. Daniel had gone back to Jennifer, and Nicole hadn't been particularly bothered about it. She had her son, and he was all that she needed. There had been no lies, no suicide attempt.

No job in the rectory when no one else would have her.

The non-memory was replaced by a stronger one, one where she told EJ the truth and the two of them stood over the crib together, marveling that they had been granted a second miracle after losing their first.

She stopped herself before she imagined the custody battle that surely would have followed, the pain of knowing that Sami was raising her child instead of the other way around.

"If there are any… remains in that coffin, they belong to someone who someone else loved. That person can't be there. But I can be there for them and make sure that someone is watching who isn't just doing a job."

"They always handle the exhumations very respectfully," Eric promised. "They have a member of the clergy present and everything."

"I don't remember you ever doing that," she said with surprise.

"I only did it once."

"What was it like?"

He hesitated. "I wish you wouldn't go."

She was torn between appreciating Eric's instinct to protect her and regretting that Eric had wasted his breath. "Do you know what day today is?"

He glanced instinctively at the phone that sat beside them on the couch, then inhaled sharply as the numbers registered.

"Yeah," Nicole confirmed. "It's his fifth birthday. He doesn't know that, because he thinks he's been five for six months and since he's been through four foster homes in that time he probably didn't have a party anyway."

"We'll have a party for him when he gets home."

"I know we will." She closed her eyes and leaned against him. "But nothing will ever give us back the first four."

She shook her head as if to rid herself of the tears. "Come on. We don't want to be late for desecrating the cemetery."

* * *

It turned out that Eric had been right. The men who blasted through the frozen earth with jackhammers and shovels were quiet and respectful. Father Louis kept a careful watch and asked Nicole how she was. Carrie and two other women in business suits bowed their heads as the infant-sized coffin was pulled from the ground.

The workmen opened it.

It was empty.

 _"Surprised, darling?"_ EJ whispered in her ear. _"You couldn't hide it from Father when you stole Sydney, and you couldn't hide it when you tried to steal Darius."_

She turned around hard, looking for EJ.

He wasn't there, of course. He was dead.

 _"You thought Darius was dead."_

"How dare you!" she whispered. "You never even cared."

Both Father Louis and Eric reached for her, telling her that everyone cared and the loss of a child was one of the hardest weights God ever allowed his children to bear.

She wrestled away from them, not willing to explain that she had been talking to a ghost. She grabbed the edge of a trash can to steady herself, relieved that if she did lose her breakfast she wouldn't lose it on someone's grave.

"I told you you were going to make yourself sick," Eric reprimanded gently.

"You really think this is the right time to say you told me so?"

"I didn't mean it that way." Eric sighed so deeply that Nicole felt sorry for him. "Please let me take you home? There's nothing else that you can do until Carrie gets the results of the test and Brady talks to April."

It was true, but Nicole didn't care.

"Please?" asked Eric one more time. "Let me take care of you."

 _"Yes, darling,"_ EJ mocked from somewhere that no one could see him. _"Let Eric take care of you. I'll go sit with Darius and tell him all about you, shall I?"_

Nicole was on the point of shouting that EJ should go haunt Abby Deveraux since Abby was crazy anyway when she was overtaken by a wave of dizziness so intense that she would have fallen had Eric not been there.

"Okay," she said, her pride gone before the all-too-literal fall. "Take me home, please."

 **Thirteen.**

Brady Black was lucky enough to have many people in his life to love fiercely. There were Tate and Chloe and Parker, of course, but also his parents and grandparents and siblings and friends.

Brady Black was also lucky enough to have the money to buy things that he loved fiercely. First among these things was his yellow Ferrari.

His father had always driven black vehicles after his name, and usually Brady followed suit. But the yellow Ferrari was an exception.

He only drove it on special occasions when he knew he would be able to park it somewhere completely safe.

And what could be safer than a prison? He pulled onto the grounds of Statesville and joined the line of cars waiting to be searched, enjoying the admiring gazes of the guards.

The line looked rather long, and Brady wasn't interested in perusing the menu for the Penthouse Grille that lay on his passenger seat, so he put the car in park and sent a text to Eric.

 _At Statesville. Waiting to get in. Long line. No chance of missing visiting hours though._

Eric's answer came quickly. _Great. Papers are all ready?_

 _So Carrie says._ Brady had wanted to let Titan's legal department double-check Carrie's work, but Eric and Nicole were adamant about keeping as few people in the loop as possible. Brady had scoffed just a bit at their paranoia, but he didn't entirely blame them.

 _The hard part isn't drafting the paperwork. The hard part is getting April to sign it._

 _You just leave that to the famous Black charm._

 _If it's so famous, how come I've never seen it?!_

Brady laughed in spite of himself as he answered. It was good to have Eric home. _You just haven't noticed because you're very unobservant. Ask Nicole. She'll tell you._

 _Nah. Nicole's asleep and I don't want to wake her up and tell her something that will give her nightmares._

Brady mentally kicked himself. He'd known what Nicole, Carrie, and Eric had had planned for that morning. _How did Nic hold up?_

 _I thought she was going to get sick or pass out. By the time I got her to come home with me, I was wondering if I should have checked her into the hospital instead._

Well, that wasn't good. _Did you find what you thought you would find?_

 _Coffin was empty. Carrie's filing the injunction now. Brandon is still at the hospital pretending he's getting to know Abe's new girlfriend but really keeping an eye on Darius._

That meant that getting April to designate Eric and Nicole as her children's guardians was the last step. _I won't let you and Nicole down._

 _Whatever happens, meet us at the hospital cafeteria at 5:00. We're going to check in with Brandon then._

 _Got it._

The line of cars had begun to move, and Brady put away his phone and began a loud, laughing conversation with the guard about what really went into a Ferrari's oil change.

The guard promised Brady that his car would be well protected, and wished him well with whatever brought him to Statesville.

That was how the famous Black charm worked.

* * *

Brady had visited the prison before and he submitted himself to the checks and re-checks with as much agreeableness as he could muster.

Then he found himself, at last, face to face with April Aguilar.

He knew from Nicole's research that April was ten years younger than he was. She looked ten years older.

That was what cocaine did to people who didn't have wealthy over-involved grandfathers to kidnap them and force them into rehab.

"What do you want?" asked April.

When Brady was craving his next hit, he always wanted perfectly honest answers with no pleasantries whatsoever. His instincts told him not to lie. "I want you to sign these papers designating my brother and his fiancée as your sons' preferred guardian."

"What would I get out of that?"

Brady made a silent promise to the universe not to ever, ever ask what he would get out of Tate's living arrangements.

"You'd get to know that your sons are safe and in a good home with people who will take good care of them."

She shrugged. "So why aren't they the guardians for your kid?"

"They are, actually," said Brady, and it wasn't much of a lie. When he'd broken up with Theresa, he had switched Belle into the role of emergency guardian because neither Eric nor Nicole had been in a particularly stable situation. Now that he and Chloe and Eric and Nicole were intimately entangled in one another's lives, and Belle was spending half of her life in Hong Kong, it was time to switch back.

"How many kids have they got?"

"None." Brady locked eyes with April. "It's a sad story," he said, holding her gaze. "Nicole gave birth to a little boy five years ago, but the doctors told her that he died. Her father-in-law gave the baby to a woman with a bag of cocaine and asked her to pretend the baby was hers."

April didn't flinch. Brady didn't know whether she was just a good poker player or whether she didn't remember what she'd done. "Hope it was the good stuff."

"I don't know. I know I would've done a lot for the good stuff, once."

April shook her head. "You're a rich boy."

Brady laughed. "You've never heard of a rich man snorting coke?"

She gave him an appraising look and he knew the moment that she believed him. Addicts recognized addicts.

He told her all about the first time he'd gotten high with Chloe's Vienna friends because Chloe wasn't around and he'd been so fucking lonely. He told her about the times he'd driven and could have killed people; he told her about the times he'd woken up without knowing where he was; he told her about how it got easier every time.

He told her about being kidnapped by his own grandfather, and just for fun he told her about his grandfather framing Chloe for his murder. That part made Brady sound like a pathetic pawn of a husband, but it made him non-threatening. Disarmed. Charming.

She told him a little of her own story, as if they were at the most perverse NA meeting imaginable. "You aren't going to offer to get me into rehab instead of this place?" she asked.

"I can try if that's what you want."

"It's not." That was just as well. If she had only been here for possession, Carrie, backed by Brady's money, could have fixed her situation in a heartbeat. But she wasn't here for possession, or even distribution. There was armed robbery. Multiple counts of assault. And at least one attempted murder.

"What is it that you want?" he asked.

"You know a man named Brian Fox."

Brian Fox was a drug dealer, one of the low level guys who always survived the Salem PD's sweeps and then allied himself with the new king of the town. "I know him."

"A thousand dollars cash in his pocket tonight, and you tell him it's from me, or I say you forced me to sign these papers."

She signed without reading and shoved the papers back across the table at him.

He knew better than to do anything but thank her and leave, tucking the papers safely inside his jacket as he did.

* * *

Brady brooded on the unfairness of it all as he drove back to Salem.

A woman had all but sold him two children for five hundred dollars each. He assumed that she intended to continue to blackmail him, but that made no difference. He was good for the money, and once Darius was ensconced with his biological mother, Child Services would be loath to remove Matthew. Brian would cover his own ass rather than complain if Brady never paid a dime, because Brian had made ten times as much from Brady the night Kristen had broken Brady's heart.

And who would be believed if April did say that Brady had used untoward methods to get her to sign on the dotted line? The man with multiple sports cars and a closet full of business suits? Or the woman who was serving twenty years in Statesville (and she wouldn't be getting an early release for delightful behavior the way Eric had)?

April and Brady had the exact same vice, but Brady had been saved from himself over and over. He'd punched Eric. He'd put Nicole in a chokehold. He'd once buried a woman alive! Everyone covered for him. Everyone gave him second chances. He'd been lucky enough to be born not only into great wealth but into a supportive family that forgave him over and over.

So stupidly lucky.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he almost hit the man who had stepped into the center of the small street that connected the waterfront on the right and the main drag to the hospital on the left.

"Road's closed. You need to circle around by the docks."

On an ordinary day, Brady would have protested that maybe it was okay for ordinary mortals to bring their ordinary cars down to the docks, but his Ferrari was most certainly not driving along a wet, rutted road crawling with tractor trailers.

On this particular day, Brady nodded and took a right hand turn.

Another man stepped into the road before he'd gotten past the first two piers. As the car slid to a stop, the menu that had been lying on the front seat tumbled to the floor. Brady reached for it reflexively.

Brady wasn't concerned; Titan owned several warehouses in the immediate vicinity and he knew the area well. He rolled down his window to ask what was going on.

Quicker than quick, the man's hand was inside the window and opening Brady's door.

At least three or four men materialized from the shadows and wrestled Brady to the ground. Two of them tangled a weight attached to a rope around his leg.

They ripped the menu from his hand—ridiculous, it wasn't as if the Penthouse Grille's specialties were a secret, although the chef did require ties and sports coats if you were actually going to eat anything— before they knocked him off the pier and into the cold, murky water.

He had the presence of mind to take a deep breath at the last possible second, but that would only delay the inevitable. He couldn't move his legs or extricate himself from the weight.

He was going to drown.

Brady had been very, very lucky until the moment that he wasn't.

 **Fourteen.**

Eric walked down the main road with the vague idea that he might intercept Brady on his way to the hospital and get a chance to talk with him before they spoke with Nicole. Brady's taste in cars being what it was, it wouldn't be hard to spot him.

He glanced away from the busy road toward the steep steps that led to the waterfront and the docks below.

Brady's Ferrari was recognizable all right— Eric's eyes drifted naturally to the low shape and bright color. The car screamed for attention; it made no sense for Brady to take it down to the waterfront. The area wasn't as rough as it has been during Eric's childhood, but it was still asking for trouble to take a $400,000 car to the docks. Brady had a discreet black sedan with carseats in the back for Tate and Parker; he drove that when he wasn't going from secure garage to secure garage. If Titan business had called Brady to the waterfront unexpectedly, it was much more likely that he would bring the car to the safety of the hospital's garage and then walk back to Titan's warehouses beside the docks.

Something had gone in between Brady's visit to Statesville and his return to Salem.

All of Eric's fears— for Darius and Matthew, for Nicole, for his own ability to be a husband and a father— concentrated themselves into one giant fear for Brady. He began to run.

He froze at the bottom of the stairs when he saw the men wrestling Brady into the water. Eric wouldn't be able to fight them off at all, let alone before Brady drowned. He had to wait.

The moment it took for the men to leave— a moment when Brady couldn't breathe— was the longest of Eric's life. He began to run again as soon as he knew they wouldn't see him.

He stripped off his gray jacket with a fleeting thought that he wore it so much that someone would recognize it as his and identify his body sooner rather than later.

He squelched that thought before his body hit the freezing water. No one was going to make an orphan of Tate, and that was all there was to it.

Eric was a better than average swimmer. He'd been on the team in high school; he'd been a lifeguard in the summers, always preferring the assignments at the lake to the assignments at the pools. Pools were deceptive. They lulled you into the false sense of security that you could see everything when you couldn't. Lakes were honest about their dangers.

Once, back when the DiMeras' torture instrument of choice had been a computer chip implanted in his Aunt Hope's brain, Gina, the woman whose memories Stefano had implanted in Hope, had kidnapped Hope and taken her place. At the time, Eric had been enamored of Gina's daughter Greta, and the two of them had joined his family in their attempt to bring Hope home. Their plane had crashed into the ocean; he'd had to swim both himself and Greta to safety. If he could do that, he could certainly do this.

Eric felt nothing but confidence as he dove through the cold, inky water. He was going to see Brady, he was going to free Brady, they were going to swim to the surface, and then they were going to find some way of putting Darius in Nicole's arms where he belonged.

He forced his eyes open; they stung with cold and grit. He saw nothing, but he knew where Brady had fallen and he knew that if he kept reaching out, he would find him.

His lungs began to burn, but he ignored them. The human body could go for six minutes without oxygen. He wasn't there yet. More importantly, Brady wasn't there yet.

He grazed Brady with his right hand and pulled himself closer. He'd been warned a thousand times in his lifeguarding days to be careful about things like this. Someone who was drowning could pull his rescuer under with him quite by accident. Brady, though, was calm. He let Eric reach for the ropes that bound his legs, the ropes that had snagged on who-knew-what down here in the water, without interruption.

Eric gave a final tug on the rope, which fell away; he kept his hand on Brady's arm to help guide him upwards. They reached the surface just before Eric inhaled a mouthful of water.

"You can hang onto the dock?" Eric asked frantically. He didn't think that he had any way of getting Brady out of the water before he'd gotten out himself.

Brady nodded hard, still too breathless to speak.

Eric pushed himself sloppily out of the water with a form that would have embarrassed every swimming teacher and coach he'd ever had. His arms were shaking. His whole body was shaking, and he didn't know whether it was from fear or cold.

He half-crouched, half lay on the ground and helped pull Brady out of the water. Brady made it mostly under his own power; Brady's body, at least, was recovering quickly from the ordeal.

Brady's mind, perhaps, was a different story.

He stretched out on the dock in the cold darkness and laughed.

"Brady!" Eric called, wondering if he could drag his brother back from wherever he'd gone before they both froze to death or were attacked by whoever had thrown Brady in the river in the first place.

Brady turned toward Eric with an infectious grin. "Trust me," said Brady, and hearing real words come out of Brady's mouth made Eric feel a little better. "I promise, it's funny." Brady grabbed Eric's arm and dragged him down to the ground, too.

Without knowing why, Eric began to laugh, too. He laughed until he choked and sat up coughing and shivering.

Still chuckling, Brady reached inside his sodden jeans and produced the keys to his beloved Ferrari. He pushed a button and the car snapped to life half a block away. Eric snatched his jacket from the ground— it seemed none the worse for wear— and jogged the short distance to the car alongside Brady. The trunk opened to reveal a gym bag, which Brady quickly unzipped. He threw a towel and a t-shirt at Eric. "Dry off as much as you can. Put that on," he commanded.

Eric obeyed. The combination of his wet clothes and the October air had suddenly gone from uncomfortable to painful. He wanted nothing more than to climb into Brady's car and turn the heat on full blast. Brady cherished that car, though; perhaps he wouldn't let Eric inside in his current state, even if the towel and the t-shirt (a souvenir from a conservatory where Brady had spent a summer as a teenager, Eric noted with amusement) had improved matters somewhat. Eric zipped the gray jacket up as high as it would go and tossed the towel back to Brady.

Brady ripped off his dripping wet shirt in turn.

The car's taillights illuminated the fading scar on Brady's chest.

Eric's own chest tightened in response.

He'd come so close to getting Brady killed, not once, but twice.

He was not getting in a car with Brady. He was not going to be anywhere near Brady when he started to cry.

"Drive safe," he told Brady before his throat closed up completely.

Then he turned and ran back in the direction of the hospital.

He heard Brady yell his name and ignored it. Brady wasn't a runner and had never been; he'd eschewed sports since his rebellious phase in high school when he'd decided to punish John by giving up baseball and all things athletic. That Brady even had a gym bag was a minor surprise. Brady wouldn't be able to catch him, not that Brady was the kind of person who was likely to bother himself giving chase to the idiot who had once been to prison for the accident that had nearly ended his life.

Eric bounded up the stairs that led from the docks to the street above. There was a gate across the top of the stairs meant to keep pedestrians from slipping and falling in cold or wet weather. Eric fumbled with the latch for a moment.

"Eric. Stop."

Eric froze.

Brady had actually chased him when he stomped off like a toddler having a temper tantrum.

Eric's eyes filled with the tears he'd known were coming. "I'm sorry," he said as he rested his head on Brady's shoulder. In the cold, hard afternoon, Brady's embrace was somehow soft and gentle. Eric hugged Brady back fiercely— too hard, probably, Brady was the one who was good at this kind of thing— and berated himself for letting his tears soak through the fabric of the dry sweatshirt Brady has scrounged from his trunk. "I'm sorry," he repeated. _I'm sorry for Daniel. I'm sorry for the heart transplant. I'm sorry you almost drowned and now you're standing here freezing and hanging on to me when you should be taking care of yourself._

Eric couldn't catch his breath well enough to do more than apologize.

"Count to five when you exhale," Brady whispered in his ear. "Hyperventilation starts when you don't exhale all the way and you try to gulp for air but you can't get any."

In spite of himself, Eric laughed. He'd never had a panic attack or hyperventilated in his life, but he'd known that, too. It was a professional hazard of being the son of a psychiatrist.

Then there was the irony of _Brady_ being the one to tell _Eric_ to breathe. No one had just tried to drown Eric.

"I can't do this," said Eric. _I can't fight the DiMeras. We always lose when we try that. I can't lose you. I can't keep putting Nicole through this knowing she's going to get her heart broken one way or another. I can't raise Darius and that other little boy as if they were my own— what do I even know about being a father? I'm just out of prison and I can barely take care of myself._

"I know you can't," said Brady.

Eric almost laughed again. _Validation_. He was quite sure that all of his siblings had flatly refused to take even one psychology course in high school or college. He was equally sure that they all secretly thought that they were psychiatrists by mere osmosis— although Eric himself had had some training in the seminary that had been intended to make him a competent counselor.

"We don't have to go anywhere, but you have to get in my car before you catch frostbite," said Brady after a moment. Brady hadn't let go of Eric. He wasn't just hugging Eric, he was _holding_ him, and Eric would have been humiliated if he hadn't been so exhausted.

"I'm wet and muddy and you love that car," Eric reminded Brady.

"Almost as much as I love you," Brady agreed. "Besides, you know Marlena would murder me in my sleep if I let you get pneumonia or something right after you pulled me out of the river."

"No, she wouldn't."

"I mean, she likes me okay, but you're her favorite."

"Belle's her favorite."

"She's a doctor and she would make it look like an accident," Brady declared. He kept one arm around Eric as he guided him back down the stairs and pushed him into the Ferrari. It took a few seconds for Brady to crank the engine and turn the heat on as high as it would go.

They sat in silence for a few minutes. "Are you warmer now?" Brady asked. Eric nodded. "Ready to hear what was so funny?" Eric nodded again.

Brady reached into the back seat and removed an envelope of damp but undamaged documents from the inside of his jacket.

"She signed the custody papers. The DiMera thugs thought they got them, but they got the menu for the Penthouse Grille."

Eric almost managed to smile at that. "If they still make that fried chicken thing every other Wednesday, it might be worth it."

"They do. You should meet me for lunch next week."

There was going to be a next week.

"I really hate it when you almost die," Eric said to Brady.

"I agree," said Brady. "I should stop doing that."

"This is serious," said Eric. "I can't keep almost getting you killed every other year. How are you not more freaked out? You could have drowned."

Brady shrugged. "As soon as I saw you, I knew everything would be okay, and it was."

That was probably the stupidest thing Brady had ever said, and Brady said some really stupid things sometimes.

"Hey," said Brady. He squeezed Eric's shoulder with one hand and steered the car onto the road with the other. "Talk to me."

"When you look at that scar on your chest, how do you not hate me?"

Brady's face lit with understanding. " _That_ ' _s_ why you flipped your shit? The scar?"

Eric nodded miserably.

"I suppose I look at it and don't hate you the same way you don't hate me when you remember the time you were locked in the basement of an apartment building by a psycho to die and I didn't do anything to stop it even though I saw the psycho in question with your rosary at the airport."

"You couldn't have known what Chyka did."

Brady shrugged. "I knew what I was saying when I spent six months making fun of you for being raped," he said quietly. "The time I accused you of taking advantage of Kristen and hit you in the head from behind and tried to choke you after you let me up. We are brothers and we forgive each other. That's what we do. Family is forever."

"We aren't even that kind of brothers," said Eric.

Brady flicked a disgusted look in Eric's direction. "I wouldn't let anyone else say something like that. Why would I let you say something like that?"

"It's true, though. We don't have the same parents. We weren't even raised together. We just… decided."

"That doesn't mean we can un-decide now. There's a point of no return." Brady's hand was back on Eric's shoulder. "You're stuck with me. Darius gets that Matty is always his brother, and he's five. You should take a lesson from him."

"Mmm." Eric had to admit that he had known exactly where Darius had been coming from when he'd knocked the cinderblock onto himself.

"Of everything I worried about when Chloe and I got back together, the one thing that never worried me was what would happen to Parker and Tate. I love those kids and I want them to have what I have." His eyes flickered to catch Eric's. "I kind of love that we're both going to have these mismatched brothers of choice. We'll raise them all together. One more and we have a basketball team."

Eric felt the logo of the conservatory shirt pressing into his chest. "Or they could always be a barbershop quartet."

"Anything they want to be," said Brady. "Perfect even when they're not."

"Right," agreed Eric. The heat blasting out of every vent in the car was finally driving the chill out of his bones, and Brady's solid presence beside him had somehow unraveled the knot in his chest.

"One more thing," said Brady. "You didn't do anything to drag me into this. I would have gone looking for Nicole's son whether you were here or in Colorado or in Africa. You didn't put me in danger. All you did was have my back. All you did was be a better swimmer than 99 percent of the population." He eased the car to a stop and turned his full attention on Eric. "Thank you for my life, Brother."

 **Fifteen.**

There were cakes announcing births and homecomings; there were bland bowls of broth for patients too sick to eat anything else. There were co-workers having their normal evening meal together; there were family members from out-of-state summoned by a crisis and looking around as if they had never seen anything quite like this before. The cafeteria at Salem University Hospital couldn't help but be a collision of the delighted and the devastated, the ordinary and the extraordinary.

Nicole felt all of it as she drank coffee with her brother and her brother's family while they waited for Brady to return with the signed custody papers— or not.

It was delightful to see Brandon catching up with Abe and Theo, apparently at peace with his heritage in a way he hadn't allowed himself to be for most of his life. It was delightful to see that Abe seemed to be finding love again with his old friend Valerie, and that Theo was starting to accept it. Even better, Brandon and Valerie had clicked at once and had been talking shop for the past twenty minutes.

It was devastating to think about her own father. She and Brandon had shared the same terrible childhood at the fists of Paul Mendez, but Brandon had retroactively won the biological father lottery. There was no such luck for Nicole. When and if she became a parent herself, she would have nothing to rely on but her questionable past to go along with the even more questionable genes she passed along.

It was ordinary to be in this cafeteria. She had visited many times over the years, sometimes as a patient, sometimes as a reporter, sometimes because Victor or Brady or EJ had a board meeting and she was expected to put in an appearance.

It was extraordinary to know that her son, the little boy that she had given up for dead, was an elevator ride away. She wanted Brady to get the custody papers and Carrie to get the court order before she openly acknowledged anything and gave anyone who might want to hurt her a chance to interfere. But the moment was getting closer and closer.

She glanced at her phone, looking for a message from Eric or Brady, or at least an update on the time. Eric had probably waylaid Brady during his "walk," and while she didn't begrudge either of them the time together—she _wanted_ that brotherly relationship for both of them, wanted it deeply— she was impatient for news.

When they came in together, every fiber of her being told her that the news would be bad. They both looked rumpled, and that wasn't typical for either of them. Brady was limping almost imperceptibly. Eric's eyes were just barely red-rimmed. They noticed her gaze at the same time; simultaneously, wordlessly, they signaled her that everything was fine.

That worried her even more. Usually one of them would tell her what was wrong with the other. Now they were colluding to pretend that nothing had happened.

She stood up from the table and rushed to grab Brady by his right arm and Eric by his left. "Stop lying to me!" she hissed.

"We haven't said anything," said Eric, as if he truly believed that that was a valid defense.

"We've got them, Nic," said Brady. He pressed a sheaf of papers into her hand; why they felt like they'd been left out in a monsoon, she didn't have time to wonder. "They're signed. Carrie can file them tomorrow. You'll have custody while we get the legal stuff sorted out to make it permanent."

She didn't care anymore what Brady and Eric were hiding. They were here. They'd done everything she'd asked them to do and everything she hadn't thought of asking them to do. She hugged them both wordlessly. There weren't any words, anyway.

"Nicky?" Brandon crept up behind them and put his hand on her shoulder. "Is this good or bad?"

"It's good," she told him. "They did it. We did it."

Brandon lifted her off the ground and swung her in a circle. She laughed; she didn't think he'd done that since they'd been kids. "Does this mean you're finally going to come see him?"

A sensation uncomfortably like fear crept through her body. She shoved it aside. "Yes!" she told him firmly. "Yes! Brandon, please, please introduce me to my son!"

"There's nothing I would rather do," said Brandon with a sincerity that touched her to her core.

"Did you say introduce you to your son?" Theo demanded loudly enough for half of the cafeteria to hear. Theo lived a life that his parents had barely dared to dream for him when he'd first been diagnosed with autism, but he still wasn't always on top of things when it came to subtleties and social cues.

Nicole found his honesty refreshing, and she explained what had happened to Abe, Valerie, and Theo as they all marched into one of the large elevators that would take them upstairs to the pediatric ward. She didn't know how or when she came to be holding Eric's hand, but she knew that in that moment her life was absolutely perfect. She was engaged to the man she had always loved above all others. She was flanked by the friend and the brother who had always had her back. She was about to meet her son.

Brandon knocked on the open door of Room 561. (Nicole hadn't dared so much to pass by in hopes of a glimpse of Darius, but she had committed the room number to memory the moment Brandon had mentioned it.)

"Hey, Darius! I have someone special that I want you to meet!"

Nicole didn't want to wait for a grand entrance or an introduction. She followed hard on Brandon's heels, ready to smother Darius with kisses first and explain herself later.

Brandon stopped so abruptly that Nicole crashed into him, her face flattened for a second against his broad back.

It brought up a memory she thought she'd been well rid of.

 _It snowed for Halloween that year, but both Nicole and Brandon flatly refused to ruin their costumes with coats and hats. Fay announced at breakfast that morning that Taylor, who was getting over an ear infection, would not be allowed out at all. Nicole had been not-so-secretly thrilled. Taylor was cautious and cowardly, not to mention too small to canvas the three nearest neighborhoods in one night without crying that her feet hurt. Brandon and Nicole, on the other hand, were adventurous and tireless. They were going to collect enough candy to last them a year— even after they were forced to hand over a share to Taylor._

 _Nicole knew that it was going to be a good day when she caught sight of a five dollar bill in the gutter amidst the slush and autumn leaves on her way home from school. Five dollars was enough for the two of them to get a bus to one of the rich neighborhoods where people handed out full-sized candy bars. She didn't know where those neighborhoods were, but she trusted Brandon to know._

 _Brandon, who never failed her, did know. "It's not the rich neighborhoods, Nicky," he expounded as he paid their fare, almost too smooth and confident for a boy of ten. "Rich people are cheap, that's how they stay rich. No, we want the people who know what it's like to live where we live, and are so glad that they don't that they celebrate by sharing. The bus doesn't go to the rich peoples' houses, anyway."_

 _They'd taken pillowcases off their beds to hold the candy, deeming the orange plastic pumpkins that had originally contained McDonald's Happy Meals too small. Even the pillowcases began to get heavy and full after they'd wandered from strange neighborhood to strange neighborhood for four hours._

 _Nicole was cold and tired, but she knew that she could keep going as long as Brandon could keep going. Halloween happened just once a year and soon they would be too old. Besides, how often did they get a chance to escape their too-small house with Taylor's whimpering and Fay's cowering and Paul's bellowing?_

 _She was grateful when Brandon told her that they'd better get back before they worried their mother, even though she didn't much care whether Fay worried or not. If Fay didn't care whether her children went to school with empty stomachs and bruised ribs, Nicole certainly didn't feel obligated to care about Fay's feelings._

" _Where's the last three dollars, Nicky?" asked Brandon._

 _She reached into the silver, sparkly boots that went perfectly with her butterfly costume. The boots were the prettiest thing she had ever owned._

 _(One day the prettiest thing she owned would not have come from Goodwill and been stained with the blood of the previous owner inside.)_

 _She took off one boot, and then the other. The snow on the sidewalk soaked through her thin socks._

 _The three dollars were gone._

 _They could have fallen out of her boot anywhere, and it seemed like they had walked for miles and miles._

 _She wanted to sit down on the sidewalk and sob, but she was tougher than that. That was the kind of thing Fay did. That was the kind of thing Taylor did._

" _I'm sorry, Brandon," she said. "I lost them."_

" _YOU—" Brandon began, and for an instant Nicole flinched. Brandon sounded just like their father. "Easy come, easy go, I guess," Brandon corrected, and Nicole breathed again. "We can walk home. I know the way."_

 _He did know the way, and he even made it seem like it was a good thing that they could stop at a few more houses before they made it back to their own street._

 _But Nicole was more than ready for dry clothes and her warm bed. When she and Brandon reached the end of the block they both started running. Brandon was faster, of course, and he hit the door two strides before she did._

 _For reasons beyond her comprehension, he stopped in the doorway. She slammed right into his back._

" _Don't let him see you," Brandon hissed. "Hide in the bushes, take the candy, sneak in later—"_

 _She knew what their father was like. She knew why Brandon was warning her._

 _She was too tired to care. "Come on, Brandon!"_

" _Allí estás, Nicole Mendez. Es muy tarde." Paul picked her up by her hair and tossed her onto the couch. It hurt._

" _And Brandon. You're older and you're in charge, right?" Paul's fist went straight into Brandon's stomach, and somehow that hurt Nicole more than her own head. "Maybe you'll pay more attention to the time in the future. Your mother was worried."_

" _Not—not so worried," Fay stammered. "I'm sure there's a better way to punish them."_

 _Paul let go of Brandon and Nicole almost breathed a sigh of relief._

 _Then Paul snatched up both pillowcases of candy and emptied them into the garbage._

" _Try to take it out and you'll be spanked so guard you won't sit down for a week," Paul informed them, and Nicole knew that it wasn't an empty threat._

 _She almost thought the beating would be worth it to retrieve the candy, but when she snuck down in the middle of the night, the candy was gone._

 _It didn't occur to her until years later that they could have bought just as much candy with the five dollars and spared themselves the whole ordeal._

 _Then she resolved never to think of any of it again._

And she didn't until she slammed into Brandon's back. He was wearing a lab coat instead of a superhero costume, and she was old enough to know that his reassurances would ring hollow.

On the bed where Darius should have been was a note.

 _Dear Ms. Walker,_

 _Congratulations on the news of your happy engagement. I'm sure we all agree that it has been a long time in coming._

 _To celebrate the new family you are gaining, I suggest that you convince your new sister-in-law to return DiMera Enterprises liquid assets from whence they came._

 _If not, it will be far more than five years before you see your son again._

 _It will do you no good to check the hospital's security tape, and any deal is off if you contact the police._

 _You have two weeks._

— _A Concerned Friend_

She fell to her knees beside the bed. She didn't care that Valerie was saying that of course they would put the hospital on lockdown and check the security tape. She didn't care that Abe was asking her why she hadn't told him what was going on. She didn't care about Brandon's profuse apologies for leaving Darius' side. She didn't care that Theo, who struggled to cope with second-hand stress, had bolted from the vicinity.

She only cared that she had done everything right and she had still lost when it was most important.

It was over.

"We'll find him, Nicole," Eric was promising. "We found him once and we'll find him again."

Eric sounded so earnest that she was sure that he believed what he was saying. She didn't. Eric didn't have the power to fix this any more than Brandon did.

The only one who had that power was Sami.

Sami, who was was the reason Nicole struggled to conceive and carry a child in the first place.

Sami, who would never truly forgive Nicole for kidnapping Sydney.

Sami, who would certainly never forgive Nicole for having a child fathered by EJ.

Sami, who would do anything to keep Nicole away from Eric.

"Sami's not going to do it," said Nicole.

"I'll handle Sami," said Brady and Eric in unison.

Nicole ignored them. It wasn't true. They couldn't handle Sami, neither one of them.

"I'll handle Sami, you handle Belle," said Eric to Brady. "She's the one inside. We need her."

"You need to consider police involvement," said Abe.

"When was the last time the Salem PD successfully outsmarted anyone named DiMera?" asked Brady, and Nicole was glad that at least someone was being honest about the hopelessness of it all.

Darius was as gone as the silver butterfly boots she'd had when she was nine.

 **Sixteen.**

Eric wasn't entirely sure whether it was a good idea for Nicole to return to work, but he couldn't exactly forbid her if she wanted to go. And she did. She announced that Jennifer had already been generous about giving her two weeks off, as if Jennifer wouldn't have completely understood the situation and offered Nicole as long as she needed.

Eric fought the temptation to call Jennifer and tell her that he thought Nicole was in shock, and could Jennifer please refrain from letting Nicole snoop around annoying powerful people for the time being? Nicole wouldn't thank him for calling her boss and interfering with her career.

Besides, there were more productive things that he could do.

He knew as soon as he heard the knock on the front door that it was Sami. She hadn't returned his voicemail, and he hadn't told her where he was living, but it was with no surprise that he opened the door for her and let her pounce on him gleefully and tell him how happy she was to see him back in Salem where he belonged.

"I haven't seen you since Christmas," she said. "You look better now." She grabbed his hand to inspect his fingers. There was no longer any sign of the damage Xander had done. "Brady's crazy cousin didn't do anything permanent?"

"No."

"Can I have a tour?"

It was a casual question on its surface, but Eric knew better than to take the words at face value. Sami was gathering information. She must have known, without Eric having told her, that he lived here with Nicole. She must have known, without Eric having told her, that his request for her help had something to do with Nicole. She was going to assess the situation, and Eric was going to let her do it. She had all of the power, anyway, and he had nothing to hide.

Sami asked no questions when she looked at the bedrooms that were intended for Darius and Matthew or the bedroom that Eric and Nicole obviously shared. She didn't say anything until she picked up the framed photograph of Nicole that Eric had placed on an end table. (If he ever had a desk again, it would go on the desk, but for now an end table was the best he could do even if Nicole thought it was slightly embarrassing.)

"You took this," said Sami. It wasn't much of a deductive leap.

"Yes."

"It's recent. You took it right after you got out of prison."

"Yes."

"It's by the water. It's supposed to be the same as the one you took of her for Titan when we were kids."

"Not the same."

"The same, but not," she said. All of a sudden, Eric didn't have any kind of a read on Sami. First, Nicole had reacted to Darius' appearance and disappearance with almost complete detachment that left him only half-able to reach her. Now he had no clue what his twin sister was thinking. No one would describe either woman as being shy about sharing her thoughts or feelings.

Obviously Eric had fallen into the Twilight Zone.

" _Still_ ," said Sami, and Eric remembered that she had said the same thing when she'd come to see him in prison for Christmas. "Are you engaged?"

"Yeah."

"Good."

"Good?" No, Eric definitely didn't have any kind of a read on Sami because that was the last thing he would have expected her to say. If it wasn't the Twilight Zone, it was Candid Camera.

He'd always hated Candid Camera.

It was mean.

It had probably been Kristen DiMera's favorite show.

Sami sat on the couch and Eric sat beside her. "It's never going to be anyone else for you, is it?" she asked quietly.

"No, Sami. It's not."

"I know you're the good twin and I'm the evil twin—"

"Don't say that." He'd taken pride in it once. The world was too complicated to do that anymore.

"Okay." She shrugged. "How are we this different? We had the same childhood. We, like, shared a womb! We should have some things in common."

"We do have things in common."

"Something besides eye color!" Her long hair swung around her shoulders as she gestured wildly. "When I was a teenager, I was sure that my life would be perfect if I could just get Austin to fall in love with me. I didn't think I would ever be able to love or trust or need anyone else."

"Believe me, I remember."

"And then, when I met Franco, it was different. It wasn't bad—I mean, in retrospect obviously it was bad—but it was different. I felt like I could step into this whole new grown-up world and leave everything that used to scare me behind. In spite of everything, I really did love him."

"I know."

"I know you know. So then Brandon, I thought Brandon was really it. This is what love is supposed to be. He doesn't want me to grow up the way Austin did. He really does want me, unlike Franco. He thinks it's cute when I lie and scheme. He has his own issues to work through, but somehow we'll balance it all out, right up until we didn't. When we were over, I literally thought I was going to die." One finger went almost unconsciously to her throat, where a scar was still visible if you knew where to look for it.

"I should have come home when that happened," said Eric.

"You had your own life," said Sami. "It's not like I was alone. That was when I fell in love with Lucas. God, Lucas. It wasn't just different with Lucas, it was more. It felt like something that was always supposed to be, Lucas and Will and me against the world. Lucas couldn't judge me for the things I used to do to Austin and Carrie because he was always right there beside me. My partner. Always. I loved him. Still do, in a way. I'm sure there's an alternate reality out there where Lucas and I lived happily ever after."

"But not in this reality."

"Because in this reality there's EJ. I hated him. I hated what he did to me and what he did to our family. I know that you were never going to approve and neither was anyone else, but I couldn't help it. Do you think I wanted to be in love with him? He fought with me and he challenged me and he made me think. He would have done anything to have me, and do you know how flattering that was? I could do anything, and he wouldn't tell me I shouldn't. He'd just cover it up. When I lost him—it took me years to accept that he was gone. I didn't want to accept it. I didn't want anyone else.

"And all of that's even without counting Rafe, who was just this perfect, upstanding man, everything I dreamed about when I was a kid. He was there for my kids when I couldn't be. He has this honor, this way of being upstanding and outstanding. He was exactly what I needed at that point in my life."

"I know all that, Sami," said Eric, not entirely sure why she was speaking like it was some kind of revelation.

"I loved every one of those men. They were all what I wanted and what I needed at different times. I'd grow out of one relationship and end up with something else, and most of the time I didn't even know how it happened. But Nicole's been all of those different people for you. She's the one that you fell for the moment you saw her when you were a kid, like Austin was for me. She's the one who knows everything about how you became you and how to be your partner, like Lucas was for me." She rolled her eyes. "She's the one who broke your heart so bad you ended up in prison, like Franco was for me. She showed you what mutual love was right off the bat, like Brandon did for me. She challenges you like EJ challenged me, and she'll go to extremes to protect you even when you don't deserve it, like Rafe did for me. It's amazing to me that you can find all of that in one person. I'm not sure I even get it, but I'm not going to try to stop you."

Eric pulled her into a hug. "Thank you, Sami."

"So you don't have to tell everyone to turn off their phones at your wedding because I might interrupt." She shuddered. "That really scared me when I couldn't reach anyone at Brady's wedding. No one except Nicole."

"You could always show up for my wedding," Eric offered.

"I guess I'd better," said Sami. "Because unlike me, you're only ever going to have the one."

She pulled away from him and sat cross-legged on the couch, watching him fixedly. "There's a room for a little boy and a room for a toddler upstairs. Who are they?"

It was a better invitation then Eric could have hoped for. So he told Sami everything, and was gratified when her reaction to the news that Stefano had faked Darius' death as he had once faked Chelsea's involved a good deal of swearing and stomping around.

"So that's why you called," she said when he told her about the note. She pulled out her phone. "Let's get Belle over here and point out that the reason Andre had the resources to pull this off was her stellar decision to give him the money."

"I don't think that's a great way to treat Belle when we need her help," said Eric.

"Come on. You know what she did was stupid."

"We don't have to say that to Belle. Belle knows what we think."

"Don't know why you don't want to be called the good twin," Sami grumbled, but she sounded almost polite when she asked Belle to come over to Eric's house as soon as she could. Eric hoped that Brady had had time to soften Belle up sufficiently.

Just in case he needed a buffer, he called Brady.

He called Carrie next. Sami made a face. "Why?"

"Because she filed the legal documents and she knows what's going on," said Eric.

Sami appeared willing to let that slide, even if she rolled her eyes again when he called Nicole and left her a voicemail. "Maybe she met someone else and that's why she can't pick up?" suggested Sami.

Eric crossed his arms and stared at her.

"Sorry," said Sami. "Force of habit." She sashayed over to the front window to wait for their siblings. "I like this window seat, though."

Eric rolled his eyes and texted Nicole to let her know what was going on. He had barely had time to hit send when Carrie, Brady, and Belle arrived together.

"Carrie and Belle are together," he told Sami. "That's a good sign."

"Why wouldn't they be?" asked Sami.

"You've been gone a long time," said Eric, as if he hadn't needed Brady to explain the issue to him a week before. In his defense, it had been a very long week. "Your old friend Kate likes to give Belle a hard time and use Carrie to do it."

"That sounds like her," said Sami, and she flung open the door to usher the others inside.

Only Belle was in the dark about the situation, now; Brady apparently hadn't had a chance to tell her. Eric watched as a petulant cloud crossed her face. Belle did not like being left out—not that anyone did, particularly, but as the baby of the family who had been everyone's little princess she had never quite gotten used to the sensation.

"So you told everyone else, but not me?" Belle asked Eric.

"He told me an hour ago," put in Sami before Eric could respond. "He needed Carrie's and Brady's help. That's why he told them first."

"How very reasonable," said Belle, in a tone that strongly implied that "reasonable" wasn't Sami's usual state of being. "He hasn't even seen you since last Christmas when you stole my identity so you could visit him in prison."

"You said she gave you permission," said Eric to Sami.

"It was a gray area," said Sami.

"It kind of was," admitted Belle.

"Sami left Belle with plausible deniability in case she got caught," said Carrie. "It was actually smart."

"And it's so unusual for us to do something smart?" asked Sami. Belle, apparently unconsciously, took a step closer to Sami's side.

"We wouldn't be in this mess if you hadn't stolen the money in the first place," said Carrie.

"No, we wouldn't be in this mess if Belle hadn't handed the money back to Andre," said Sami.

"I gave it to Chad!" Belle objected. "How was I supposed to know he'd bring a serial killer into the business?"

"Because the business is called DiMera Enterprises, that's how you were supposed to know! This is what DiMeras do when they get involved with that business!"

"Not Chad!"

"All of them!"

"So why did you marry one?"

"That wasn't necessary," injected Brady, who had tried far too hard to marry a DiMera himself.

"Oh, you're a big supporter of EJ and Sami now?" Belle asked Brady. "Didn't you tell me that was the most dysfunctional thing you ever saw in your life?"

"Belle, _I_ never married a DiMera," said Eric as gently as he could. "And _I'm_ the one who's asking for your help. Not Sami."

"You agree with her," Belle accused.

"Sort of," Eric conceded, because he knew that she wouldn't believe him if he lied. "But I understand how much harder it is to build something up than it is to tear something down."

"I thought that if I could build it back up the right way—"

"I know," said Eric. "But the DiMeras aren't like us. Even if Chad is everything you think he is, the company belongs to all of them. We don't have a billion dollars just because Brady does, but everything Chad has, Andre has too."

"You do know that if there was a finite amount of money to fix this, I'd give it to you, right?" asked Brady defensively.

"Can't you just get some Kiriakis thugs to beat up the DiMera thugs?" Sami asked Brady.

"They prefer to be called security specialists," said Brady. "And it's too late for that. All I'd do is start a potentially violent shipping war on top of everything else. That's the same reason I didn't tell my Kiriakis family about them trying to drown me to get to the custody papers."

"They did what?" demanded Belle, Sami, and Carrie.

Brady smiled a little. "Eric pulled me out. No big deal."

"And you didn't think you should tell me that?" Sami asked Eric.

"There was a lot to catch up on," said Eric, not sure how this was his fault.

"And it was hardly worth mentioning," said Brady.

"I think it was," said Carrie. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," said Brady.

"And you, Eric? Rescuers get hurt jumping off that pier all the time."

"Yes," said Eric. "I'm fine."

Carrie slapped them both upside their heads. Belle and Sami nodded in approval. Eric and Brady exchanged a look reminding each other why they never let themselves be triple-teamed by their sisters if they could possibly avoid it.

"Can we get back to the plan?" asked Brady.

"We have a plan?" asked Sami.

"No, but we'd like to," said Eric.

"Maybe the first part of the plan is calling the police," suggested Carrie.

"We're not involving the police," said Brady.

"The note said not to," said Eric. "I went through this with Abe."

"There's not some kind of officer of the court thing that means you have to report this, is there?" asked Brady.

"What are you going to do if there is?" asked Carrie.

"Lock you in the basement until it's over," said Brady nonchalantly.

"That's a little dark," said Belle. "Coming from someone who once buried a woman alive."

"She buried herself alive. Besides, she deserved it."

"No, I don't have to report this and neither does Belle," said Carrie. "But Eric, Sami, you're the children of a police officer. We all took so much pride in that growing up, remember?"

"Where did it get us?" asked Eric.

He didn't expect all of his siblings to stand there staring at him in response, but perhaps he should have. He was the one who'd always talked about playing by the rules. Man's rules. God's rules.

He was different now, and that felt both good and bad.

At least he had their attention.

He wasn't sure he ever remembered that happening before.

"Sami, will you give up the money?" he asked.

"I told you I would," said Sami.

"Belle, will you make sure it goes into the more legitimate parts of the business, at least to start with? You make sure you handle it personally?"

"Of course I will," said Belle.

"Brady, will you give me whatever I need for the exchange?"

"Like you could stop me from doing that," said Brady.

"Carrie, have I done anything illegal yet?"

"Not yet," said Carrie.

"Is there a way that we can use this to put Andre in jail for a while?" asked Sami. "Maybe we'll get lucky and someone will shank him in prison before he comes after another one of our kids."

"Probably not if you don't involve the police," said Carrie.

"Do you think we can do it with just Rafe?"

"You're going to ask your ex-husband to help?"

Sami shrugged. "Trying to put away the DiMeras is basically his favorite thing, and he was going to pretend that this little boy was his son just to stick it to EJ, right? He likes Nicole, for whatever reason men always like her." She cast a baleful look at Eric and Brady. "I'm sure we can't get him for attempted murder," Sami nodded at Brady, "But there's got to be a way to pin the kidnapping on him. The second one, not the first one."

Sami and Eric locked eyes for a long, long moment.

"All right," Eric agreed. "Only if it's only Rafe, and Nicole gets veto power. But I won't stop you. And no one tells Dad. He's too high up and it looks too suspicious."

"Agreed," said Carrie. "I think you're right, Eric. I promise we'll get Darius back. We all have children. We aren't letting anyone take yours away."

It was strange, but nice, how casually Carrie acknowledged that Darius would be his son once they found him.

"Have you seen him?" Sami asked. "Darius?"

Eric nodded. "Yeah."

"What does—what does he look like?"

"Blond hair, blue eyes."

"I mean, does he look like he's Johnny and Sydney's brother?"

Eric berated himself inwardly for not preparing himself for that question. "No," he said honestly. "He looks like Nicole."

"I don't think EJ's genes were all that strong," said Belle. "Sydney and Johnny look like Bradys."

Eric personally thought that that was both true and good, but he supposed he wouldn't share that thought with Sami, whose eyes had a far-off look in them.

"It's really hard to overwhelm the Brady genes," said Carrie mildly. "Somehow I'm not surprised it's hard to overwhelm the Walker genes, too."

Despite the absolute love he already felt for Darius and Matthew, Eric wished for a second that he and Nicole could have had the chance to see what a Brady-Walker child would have looked like. But standing in a room with his siblings— half-siblings, step-siblings— reminded him that it would matter not at all in the long run.

 **Seventeen**.

Nicole scowled when she turned on her phone and saw the messages Eric had left. She didn't like the idea that he had had some kind of planning session without her, but she also didn't blame him. She'd deliberately put herself out of reach.

Her own plan— so careful, so controlled— had failed. She wasn't usually tempted to slink off into a corner and hide when she failed, but this was the worst failure of her life.

If Darius was gone forever, after they'd come so close, she didn't know whether she was going to be able to get up again. Not even for Eric, not even after she'd sworn to herself that she was strong enough for this.

She returned home in a fog.

Eric's siblings must have gone; there were no cars in the driveway.

As she approached the front door, though, she heard someone call her name.

"Nicole."

"Sami."

Naturally Sami hadn't parked in the driveway. She'd hidden somewhere to make sure that she could catch Nicole alone to rant about how Nicole deserved to lose Darius after what she'd done to Sydney, and probably to announce that she was going to use her magical twin radar to force Eric to dump Nicole.

"Can I talk to you?" asked Sami.

"Can I stop you?" Nicole asked the universe.

"That's not a very nice way to talk to the person who has the one thing you need to get what you want," said Sami.

It felt like a thousand conversations she'd had with Sami over the past twenty years. Sometimes Sami had claimed to be the key to Nicole reuniting with Eric. Sometimes Sami had actively blackmailed Nicole; the ridiculous evidence of Nicole's ridiculous fling with Colin Murphy came to mind. They'd fought over Eric and Brandon and EJ and Austin.

It was all so trivial.

None of it mattered next to Darius.

"What do you want, Sami?" Nicole asked wearily.

"I wanted to tell you that out of everything I've ever wished on you— and believe me, death and dismemberment is the least of that— I never wished for this. There's nothing worse than knowing your child is out there and wondering if you'll ever see him again. Somehow that's even worse than having years with your child stolen from you."

"And you would know because I was the one who put you through that," Nicole completed, not willing to let Sami deliver the punchline. "I married Lucas to help him keep Will away from you. I switched Sydney and Grace. I—"

"I was actually thinking of this time before I met you," said Sami mildly. She sounded, just for a second, like Eric. Nicole had never noticed any sort of resemblance in the way the twins spoke before. "There was a time before I met you, you know. The B.N. era. It stands for 'Before Nicole.'"

Nicole didn't laugh. Nothing was funny.

"It was when Will was a baby. I was living in this dump of an apartment, and I thought my next door neighbor Mary was a godsend because she was always just so happy to help me with Will. It turned out that she was privately judging me the whole time, and when she decided that I wasn't worthy of Will, she kidnapped him and took him to France to be adopted by some couple who was up to her standards. No one even believed me when I said that Will had been kidnapped. I'd cried wolf so many times, I'd manipulated Austin so many times, that everyone just ignored me while Will got further and further away."

"That must have been awful," said Nicole woodenly.

"It was. You know, my mother actually saw him in Paris but she didn't recognize him and of course no one was willing to tell her he was even missing because hey, Sami's a liar."

"Marlena didn't recognize her own grandson?"

"Well, she hadn't seen him in months because Stefano had been holding her prisoner in an underground birdcage." Sami held up her hands as if to stave off an accusation of lying.

"Sounds like Stefano."

"So does this. This thing with Darius. Stefano's gone and it would be really nice to get rid of this part of his legacy. If Eric is going to raise Darius, he'll be my nephew. He was already Johnny and Sydney's brother, and if I ever find EJ, Darius will be visiting us on weekends. What I'm saying is, I'll do anything I can to help you. Not just because he's EJ's son, not just because he's Eric's stepson, but because no child deserves this and no mother deserves this."

That wasn't what Nicole had expected at all. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"Eric says he looks like you, but I guess that's all Eric was ever going to see no matter what he looked like. You'll be the one who looks at him and sees EJ, like I do with Johnny and Sydney."

"How are they?" asked Nicole.

"Good," said Sami. "Johnny loves any kind of adventure, but Sydney's sick of traveling. It's probably just as well that we won't have the money to live like we've been living."

"Will you come back here?"

"Probably not. Losing Will and losing EJ, it's still too…"

"I get it."

"But we will be here for the wedding, so if you want Sydney for a junior bridesmaid or something, she's available. The more princessy the dress, the better, but she tells me she's too old to be a flower girl."

"So noted." The thought of Sydney announcing that she was too old to be a flower girl made Nicole even more acutely aware of the passage of time. "You're okay with Eric and me getting married?"

"Are you asking my permission?"

"No."

"I didn't think so. I will make your life a living hell if you break his heart again, but I think you understood that already." Sami patted Nicole's shoulder. "Stay strong. We'll bring Darius home. I may have hated you over the years, but nothing like the way I hated Stefano. And you know what they say about the enemy of my enemy."

 _The enemy of my enemy is my friend._

Sami vanished, and Nicole opened the front door to see Eric standing in front of her. He had obviously been watching Nicole and Sami through the window.

"Did you hear that?" Nicole asked.

"I wasn't eavesdropping. I just wanted to be ready to step in if it looked like there was going to be bloodshed."

"It was weird," Nicole mused as she threw her coat and her bag in the general direction of a chair. "She was nice."

"She is sometimes," said Eric.

"She's okay with us getting married."

"I know. She told me."

"You think she was sincere?"

"Yeah."

Nicole sat on the couch. She and Eric had hastily bought it when they'd arranged to buy the house, and it felt strange and foreign beneath her. Everything felt strange and foreign.

"Nothing makes sense," she told Eric. He sat down next to her and tucked her into his side. That, at least, felt familiar. Nothing had felt familiar since she'd seen Darius' bed standing empty. "I feel like I'm not even here."

His arm tightened around her. "What would make you feel like you're here?"

"I don't know if I want to feel like I'm here, anyway, so it doesn't matter."

He kissed her temple. "I want to feel like you're here. There were too many times when I wished you were here and you weren't."

"And too many times when I was here and you wished I'd go away."

"You know that isn't true."

She shrugged against him and leaned in closer. "Maybe."

"What is it that doesn't make sense?" he asked.

"Sami being on our side, for one thing. I can almost wrap my mind around her being willing to help us with Darius. She's a mother and she loves her kids and she's gone through losing them. But she's just handwaving us wanting to get married?"

"I don't think she handwaved it," said Eric. "I think she thought about it."

"That's even weirder."

"What, Sami thinking?"

Nicole laughed in spite of herself. "No. Yes. I could understand if she was too distracted with her own life to interfere with yours. But instead she actually considered it and decided not to try to stop us. Your whole family is fine with us. The last time your whole family was fine with us, President Clinton was talking about the meaning of the word 'is' and you couldn't turn on the radio without hearing _Candle in the Wind_ because everybody was sad about Princess Diana dying."

Eric smiled, too. "Okay, I'll give you that that's weird. I thought the same thing when I walked into my birthday party at my Mom's house and everyone wanted to know where you were."

"And everyone wants to help me. Your family. My family. That's another thing that's weird. Remember the day Orpheus shot you because he was trying to get to me? Brady's wedding?"

"Yes, Nicole, I recall that."

She didn't care for the hint of mockery, but she was too comfortable snuggled up against him to object. "When Kayla and your mom and the paramedics started swarming around you to stop the bleeding, I just stood there for a minute. I didn't know whether I should go with you to the hospital or what. I was so confused about you, but I felt so displaced when they came over and started taking care of you. I stood on the altar and I looked at everyone else in the church. They were all in their perfect little groups of family and friends and I was the only one who was alone. I remember looking at Theresa, especially. She was breaking things off with Brady, and she had her parents and her sister all hovering around her like some kind of honor guard. I looked at them and I thought that I wondered what that was like. This last week, I've gotten it. Everything I've asked for to help is get to Darius, I've gotten. Brandon dropped everything to come here. Chloe went around pretending that she was pregnant and didn't think the father was Brady, and Brady was okay with that. Jennifer doesn't seem to care whether I ever do my job again. She says family comes first. How did this happen?"

"You're a fantastic person and people like you?" suggested Eric.

Nicole rolled her eyes.

"Don't roll your eyes," Eric said. "You've been fighting an uphill battle for years. Ever since they told you that Darius was dead. You've been trying to do the right thing. You told Daniel when Chloe wanted to use Parker to come between him and Jennifer. You fought for my good name when no one else would. You lost Daniel through absolutely no fault of your own, and everyone in this town watched you grieve and watched you put your life back together and watched you forgive me. If you live your life that way every single day, sooner or later people notice."

"You made me better. You did and Daniel did."

"Neither one of us did. You did, Nicole. You decided that you wanted to live your life in a different way. You decided to show everyone else what you always showed me."

"We should get married really fast before they change their minds," said Nicole. The conversation was getting too heavy. Everything was too heavy.

"We should get married really fast so we can finally be married," Eric countered.

"That too. Have you thought about what kind of wedding you want?"

"Eloping tonight while we have a few minutes sounds good."

"Great idea, except for the part where it makes Marlena and Sami hate me all over again."

"No inviting the whole town and no video of any kind."

"Good plan."

"No audio of any kind either."

"No music?"

"No. Someone would probably replace the musicians with plants who'd play the Imperial March for Star Wars or something."

Nicole chuckled. "We might want to do that on purpose."

"Okay, fine. Music. But someone we trust is in charge of staring at the musicians the whole time."

"Deal."

"And we see if they'll let us put a sniper on the church. After what happened with Brady and Theresa, maybe they will."

Nicole's eyes widened in surprise and she twisted to get a better look at Eric. "You want to get married at St. Luke's? After everything?"

"Not if you don't."

"It's where we reconnected. Twice," said Nicole. "We can focus on that, and get rid of the bad memories." The more she turned the idea over in her head, the more she liked it. "But I'm still divorced."

"We can have a nuptial mass without communion if the bishop says it's all right," said Eric. "In my experience, he usually does if the priest requests it, and I think Father Louis would. They'll still want us to do Pre-Cana."

"That sounds like fun," said Nicole. "You already know the answers, though. That probably means they won't put our names on the leaderboard even though we'll get the highest score ever."

"It doesn't work like that."

"Sure it doesn't," said Nicole. She had always believed that the priests secretly took bets on which marriages were going to fail and how quickly. It was just a coincidence that even though she'd searched the offices many times over for perfectly legitimate reasons, she'd never turned up the book.

"It's good to see you smile," Eric told her, and that made the smile melt off of her face. She shouldn't have been making wedding plans when Darius was out somewhere in the world with yet another group of strangers, scared and hurt.

"I shouldn't be smiling."

"You can't be focused on Darius every second of every day. You've been walking around like a robot, and that level of stress isn't doing him any good."

"I know."

"How are you feeling? Physically? Is your stomach still upset?"

"Just nervous. And tired. You can't blame me for that."

"Not blaming. Just concerned."

"How are you feeling?" she returned. "Getting out of prison and readjusting is hard enough, but but you jumped right into an engagement and a new house and if everything goes well, a couple of kids. Shouldn't you be freaking out?"

"I saved my freaking out for Brady the other day."

Nicole felt an irrational jolt of jealousy. She liked being the one Eric talked to when he was upset, although he was talking to her now. "Did he take good care of you?"

"He was basically a saint."

"Good. That was why the two of you looked all messed up when you came to the hospital with the custody papers?" A guilty look crossed his face. She didn't like that at all. "Eric…"

"Carrie hit both of us when she found out," Eric said. "With all this talk about how people view you, wouldn't you like to be a nicer person than Carrie?"

Nicole pulled her knees to her chest and studied Eric fixedly. "I don't know."

"Someone tried to take the signed papers away from Brady and threw him off the pier. He would have drowned if I hadn't gone in after him."

She understood Carrie's desire to slap Eric for not telling her right away. But since that had been taken care of, she kissed Eric instead. "You're both all right?"

"We're fine."

"I love you."

"I love you, too." He kissed her again, and Nicole was just starting to think that maybe this was the thing to do to relax and regroup when the doorbell rang.

"Let's ignore it," Eric suggested.

" _Eric Brady, do not pretend you aren't there. Did you think I wouldn't find out?"_ came Roman's shout from outside.

"This is why you should tell people things," said Nicole primly, and she went to open the door.

Roman's lecture about how the hospital had reporting policies and so did the police department and so did Child Services was, against all odds, highly entertaining to Nicole.

In the house where she'd grown up, the smallest infraction might have meant a beating. As an adult, she hadn't given much credence to anything either of her parents had had to say.

Things had been different in the house where Eric had grown up, and as an adult he was completely capable of submitting to a lecture by his father.

That was what she wanted for Darius— and Matthew, too. Not so much the yelling, but the lifelong relationship and the trust and the love and the communication.

Between them, she and Eric were going to do this and they were going to do it right.

"… Do you want to tell me what in the hell you and your sisters and your brother were planning to do?" Roman demanded at last.

"Not really," said Eric.

"In that case, let me guess. You were going to turn over that money without any kind of protection for you or for that little boy."

"I can take care of myself, and I would have had Brady."

"Remember the day after the prison break when you and I talked in the hospital?"

"The time you threatened to bang my head into the wall?"

"I obviously should have done it, since you didn't take anything away from the conversation as it was."

"What you told me was not to make meaningless sacrifices. You said it was okay to do dangerous things when there was a greater good."

Roman sighed. "That does sound like something I might have said."

"It's kind of how you lived your life, Dad."

"It's how I almost lost my life, over and over, and that was with the police department and the ISA backing me up."

"And with all of that, Stefano DiMera kept killing people and torturing people until he was a sick old man with terminal cancer."

"If you don't want to put your faith in the system in general, you can put your faith in me, can't you?"

"It's not about faith."

"It's always faith with you."

Eric shrugged. "Fine. I have faith in you, but not…"

"Not in doing the right thing and having it pay off eventually?" asked Nicole quietly.

Both Roman and Eric started as if they had forgotten that she was there. Eric crossed the room quickly and put his hands on her shoulders. "If you want the police involved, of course we'll have the police involved."

"You don't actually have a choice," said Roman.

"If you want us to cooperate, we'll cooperate," Eric corrected.

"We should," said Nicole firmly.

"Thank you, Nicole," said Roman. "Can I have the ransom note?"

Eric pulled it from his pocket and handed it to Roman. Nicole hadn't known he'd been carrying it around.

"We're sorry, Roman," said Nicole. "I've been out of it ever since this happened."

Roman softened. "That's perfectly understandable. No one's in their right state of mind when these things happen. You and Eric have both been hit with a lot of changes all at once. It's a lot to handle."

"We can handle it," Eric promised.

"I certainly hope so," said Roman. "Because as I said, we have a whole alphabet soup of government agencies involved here, and one of them is prepared to bring Matthew Aguilar here tonight." He looked at his watch. "Sooner rather than later. Is that really something you're ready for?"

Nicole knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was. "Let me show you his bedroom," she said.

* * *

Matthew arrived, whining and overtired, half an hour later. The social worker tried to introduce them; Matthew had no interest in listening.

"We've already met, right, Matty?" asked Nicole. "Remember me?"

"No," said Matthew, and somehow that made Nicole like him even better.

She'd had a soft spot for Matthew ever since his foster mother had explained that Darius was easy and Matty was difficult.

Nicole knew difficult.

Nicole knew what it was like to be a kid in a bad situation.

Nicole had been a difficult kid in a bad situation.

She picked up Matthew the way she had in Mrs. Cherry's backyard. Matthew clung to her just as he had done then.

"I gave birth to Darius, but I'm choosing you," she told Matthew. "We'll get into it more when you're older."

She could feel the social worker's doubt. She didn't care. She let the woman observe her as she put Matthew to bed, a routine she'd learned by heart with Johnny and Sydney and Parker. She didn't care that the private moment had been invaded. They would have too many of these moments to count. She was sure of it.

She was feeling again, and that feeling was faith.

 **Eighteen.**

The next two weeks were long and short.

They were long because Nicole and Eric were waiting frantically for news of Darius.

They were short because life with Matthew was more than a bit of an adjustment.

Matthew's frustrated tantrums were interspersed with dazzling smiles that were usually directed at Nicole. At best, Matthew was tolerant of Eric.

"You know somewhere along the line, some man hit him," Nicole murmured to Eric. Eric nodded his agreement, and Nicole was sure that he understood, but she still hated that this period of adjustment for all of them had come so quickly after Eric's return to Salem.

One afternoon when Eric was working with Anna on another photo shoot, Nicole put Matthew in a stroller and walked with him to St. Luke's. Father Louis greeted them both with his usual warmth. "Matthew is one of my favorite names," he told Matty. "I had a wonderful friend named Matthew."

"Father Matt," Nicole said aloud. She hadn't even made the connection. "Matthew is a terrific name, Matty. Father Louis is right. Maybe it's a sign that you were meant to be here with us."

"The Lord does sometimes send unsubtle signals to his more audacious children," said Father Louis.

"Don't I know it," said Nicole. "There have been times he wouldn't leave me alone."

"He never leaves you alone, Nicole," said Father Louis gently.

"I was hoping for a different kind of sign," said Nicole. "A sign that God would be willing to bless our unexpected family by letting Eric and me get married at St. Luke's even if the nuptial mass can't have communion because I've been divorced. Or whatever."

Father Louis smiled as broadly as she had ever seen him smile, which was saying something. For a man of God, he had a wicked sense of humor. "I will make the request from the bishop, but I don't see why not. We usually make that allowance in this parish."

"How quickly do you think we can get married?"

"How quickly are you willing to do Pre-Cana?"

"We'll do whatever you say. As long as it doesn't interfere with paying the ransom for my kidnapped undead child."

That got his attention. "Why don't you tell me a little bit more about your situation— in complete confidence, of course— while we put your name down for the first week in December. There was a cancellation. The couple decided to elope."

"Good for them," said Nicole, before remembering where she was and to whom she was speaking. "I mean, what a shame that they deprived themselves of the opportunity to be in a state of grace."

"That's not quite how it works," said Father Louis.

Priests tended to say that to Nicole a lot. She enjoyed it more than she would ever have expected to.

* * *

The next evening, she strapped Matthew into the carseat where she had learned that he liked to sleep and told Eric to get into the car, too.

"Where are we going?" Eric asked.

"We're going to Pre-Cana because we're getting married at the beginning of next month," she informed him. "I hope you didn't feel like your schedule was already full with the new job and the new house and the new child."

"Not at all," said Eric. "But don't lie on the questionnaire. Father Louis will know, and that makes it take twice as long."

"How's he going to know?" Nicole demanded.

"I always knew because it's always obvious."

"Did you still marry the people you knew lied?"

Eric's eyes narrowed. "I don't feel like I'm breaking a vow if I tell you that the biggest liar I ever saw on one of those surveys was Kristen DiMera. The thing is, by the end of the conversation I believed she was in love with Brady."

"Well, she was. In a psycho way. Are we going to have to talk to Father Louis about our sex life?"

"You're worrying about this now? After you went to him and had him go to the bishop and and reserved the church?"

"Not worried," said Nicole. "More like concerned that his heart won't be able to take it when I explain about that time on the balcony of our hotel room at the beach when—"

"He does not need that level of detail!"

Nicole laughed.

Eric pretended that he'd known she'd been joking. "The question on the survey is whether we can talk candidly about sexual intimacy in marriage. If we both say yes, he'll let it go and focus on something else."

"Is that what Kristen did? She said yes to everything?"

"She gave answers that were demonstrably false."

"Like, one of the questions is 'are you a psycho bitch?' and she said no so you knew she was lying?"

"Like, if either one of us answers the question about whether we disagree with each other about some of the teachings of the church by saying no, Father Louis will know we're lying. He knows that I agree with a lot more of the teachings than you do."

"But that's not a problem anymore."

"So there's no reason not to tell him that."

"I don't even remember doing this with EJ," said Nicole. "Maybe he bribed someone so we could skip it, or maybe I just didn't care."

"Try not to bring that up," said Eric as he pulled a sleeping Matthew out of the car and carried him into the church.

"I thought we weren't going to cheat," said Nicole merrily.

She was looking forward to taking a test in a church, and she was nervous about doing well.

Eric did strange things to her.

* * *

Nicole laughed when she looked at the questionnaire. She knew right away what Eric had meant about how obvious it would be if she lied by giving the "right" answers.

 _I am concerned that in-laws may interfere in our marriage relationship._

There wasn't enough room on the questionnaire to write "hello? have you met his twin sister?" so she settled for answering yes, even if it was a less solid yes than it had been in the past.

 _There are certain behaviors or habits in my future spouse that sometimes annoy me._

"Too bad this isn't an essay test," she said aloud.

"You can give an oral presentation instead of an essay," said Father Louis.

"Don't encourage her," said Eric.

"Is it bad if my husband-to-be doesn't encourage me in all things?" asked Nicole.

"Not in this case," said Eric.

"I already answered yes to the one about you annoying me."

"So did I, so you can stop making an effort."

She continued with the survey.

 _We have discussed the ways our families solved problems and how this may affect our problem solving._

"We could actually prove that we discussed the way our families solved problems because of those letters," said Nicole.

"We're not trying to prove anything," said Eric.

"We kind of are," said Nicole, even though she'd just gotten to the question about discussing their sex lives and was deliciously tempted to answer that they didn't.

Then the last question stopped her dead in her tracks.

 _I sometimes feel that this may not be the right person for me to marry._

Circling "no" didn't seem like enough.

 _NEVER NEVER NEVER!_ She wrote. _BEEN THERE, DONE THAT, NOT DOING IT THIS TIME!_

"He told you no essays," said Eric.

"I don't care," said Nicole.

She handed the questionnaire back to Father Louis, who nodded at her note.

Most of the conversation centered on Matthew and Darius and what Eric and Nicole would do in various scenarios.

"Why are we talking about this?" asked Nicole after half an hour. "We both answered yes about bringing children into the marriage, which is good because one of them is already here. We're both aware that I'm not going to get pregnant the old-fashioned way, and we wish that wasn't true, but we've discussed it and we accept it."

"We're discussing children because Darius and Matty are what's new and challenging in your relationship," said Father Louis. "I know that you've discussed the other issues at length. I've watched you discuss most of the other issues at length."

Nicole had to admit that that was true.

"In any case, we can wrap this up for now," continued Father Louis. "We'll meet once more after Thanksgiving and before the wedding."

The mention of Thanksgiving made Nicole's stomach lurch. Father Louis and Eric were both looking at Matthew, and neither one of them noticed when she clapped a hand over her mouth and willed her stomach to settle down.

Nerves were one thing, but she hadn't felt this constant lingering nausea since…

Since she'd been pregnant with Darius.

 **Nineteen.**

It was undeniable that Nicole and Eric had had a lot of unprotected sex since he'd gotten out of prison.

"At my age, though?" Nicole asked herself aloud as she looked into the bathroom mirror. Even the most fertile woman became less so throughout her thirties, and Nicole's fertility had been irreparably damaged back when she'd been too young to care.

She'd been pregnant twice since then.

She knew it was possible and she knew what it felt like.

She bought a pregnancy test and hid it under the bathroom sink, resolving herself to work up the courage to take it and tell Eric some other day.

* * *

Eric was working with Anna yet again— she was having some rather unexpected success, to both of their benefits— when his father interrupted the photo shoot.

He could have watched Roman and Anna bicker with real interest, but Roman ignored Anna's objections and hustled Eric out of the room.

"We have eyes on Darius, and we need you to make the exchange. You're going to walk out there with a laptop and push the button to transfer the funds in front of DiMera's man when you see the kid." A bullet proof vest was thrown in Eric's general direction; he caught it instinctively. "You'll have trained snipers around you to protect you. You won't see them. They'll be there. But you'll wear that anyway."

"I didn't think you were going to let me have anything to do with this," said Eric. His heart pounded as he fastened the vest.

"I didn't want to, but I don't want to do anything to raise DiMera's suspicions, and he's demanding you or your sister or Nicole. Congratulations, you have the levelest head."

"I appreciate the vote of confidence," said Eric wryly.

"I have nothing but confidence in you, or you wouldn't even know this is going down. I'm officially forbidding you to call Nicole, though, so that decision is out of your hands."

Eric didn't object. Ever since he had first begun to believe that Darius might have lived, he had worried about making Nicole suffer through another severe disappointment. She hadn't felt well since Andre had kidnapped Darius. It was better that she stayed home with Matthew and rested.

The cops told him over and over what he was and was not permitted to do.

"Are you sure you're listening?" asked Shawn for the fifth time. "Because the last time I let you anywhere near a police action, I told you to stay down and back—"

"This is different," said Eric.

"Okay," said Shawn. He wished Eric luck and let Eric go.

"You're going to have to drive to the meeting place alone, which means, congratulations, your license has been reinstated." Roman slapped a thin piece of plastic into Eric's hand and gave him the keys to his own car. A carseat suitable for a boy Darius' size had been installed in the back.

The meeting place was a cabin in the woods. Roman was right; the snipers were well-hidden. Eric felt as if he were completely alone until he entered the cabin and was confronted with four assault rifles and one blindfolded boy.

"How's your foot, Darius?" Eric asked.

"His foot was like that when we got him," said one of the men. The men all wore masks, and the part of Eric that had spent too much time with Anna lately wanted to scold them for being a cliche.

"I know that. What I want to know is whether you made it worse."

"Ask the question again, and this time the kid can answer."

"Darius," said Eric. "My name is Eric. I met you the day you knocked the cinderblock onto your toe when you were protecting Matty. Matty is at my house and I want to take you to see him. How does your foot feel?"

"Itchy. I hate the cast," said Darius.

"Does it hurt?"

"No. It's annoying."

Eric nodded. "You want me to open the laptop?" he asked the men.

"Nice and slow."

Eric obeyed. Two rifles were trained on him; two were trained on Darius. He pushed the buttons he had been told to push, the account numbers and passcodes completely meaningless to him.

"All good," one of the men said at last. Eric thought he must have been communicating with someone through a wire in his mask. "Give him the boy."

The man closest to Darius removed the blindfold. Darius stood blinking in confusion for a moment and then looked at Eric.

"I remember you," he said.

"You can have the reunion in your car," said the man who seemed to be the leader. "Get out."

Eric didn't need to be told twice.

* * *

Nicole removed the pregnancy test from beneath the sink an hour after she'd left it there.

"Should I take it before I tell Eric or after?" she asked the empty room. "If I take it before and it's negative, he never has to know and he doesn't have to worry about me being disappointed. He doesn't have to be disappointed himself. He never says that he wishes he could have a biological child, but we all know he does. He grew up with parents and siblings he actually liked. Of course it's something he always expected. If he were with any other woman, he'd be talking about how much he wanted it. He used to, back before I was stupid enough to get shot and ruin my chances. Our chances."

She glared at the pregnancy test. "I bet Serena would have been pregnant in no time. I'm surprised she didn't get pregnant. Elephant-loving bitch may have been into exploiting people in developing countries because it gave her a rush, but she was probably fertile. Don't elephants make you fertile, or something? I hate elephants."

"El-e-phants?" came Matthew's clear, hopeful voice. He trotted into the room and looked around curiously.

"You like elephants?" Nicole asked. Matthew nodded. "Let's see if we can find you a book about elephants to read." Chloe had given them a set of children's books involving a pig and an elephant. She had sworn up and down that Parker loved them, and so Nicole had not thrown them away, although she had been sorely tempted.

Matthew and Nicole were still reading about the elephant and the pig who had been invited to a party when the door opened.

"We're home!" Eric shouted.

"We're in here!" Nicole answered. "And who's _we_?"

"Someone who'd like to stay a while," said Eric. "Like, forever."

Her whole body began to shake when she saw Darius in Eric's arms. Eric grinned and deposited Darius on Nicole's lap. Darius and Matthew scrambled to greet each other, with Darius seriously asking Matthew whether he liked it here and Matthew effusively cooing Darius' name over and over.

"They didn't tell me until right before the exchange," said Eric over the din of Darius and Matthew's delight. "I couldn't warn you."

"Is he all right?" Nicole asked frantically. "Darius, are you all right?"

"I'm good," said Darius. "I like Eric."

"I'm glad," said Nicole. "I like him too."

"Eric said we could get pizza."

Nicole laughed. The child had a broken foot and had been taken hostage, and he was worried about pizza. "I guess we can. Do you want pepperoni?"

"Tomato and basil."

Nicole looked at Darius curiously. Eric was right; Darius looked a lot like her. But she was pretty sure that EJ's genes were telling in his pizza preferences.

"Matty? Do you want tomato and basil on your pizza?"

"He'll eat what I tell him to eat," said Darius.

"As a younger brother, that sounds familiar," said Eric.

"We'll get two pizzas, just in case," Nicole decided.

While they waited for the pizza to arrive, Darius ran as well as he could from room to room with Matthew by his side and Eric and Nicole trailing after them. When Darius discovered his own room, he stopped dead in his tracks.

"Whose room is this?" he asked.

Nicole knelt before him. "It's yours, Darius. Do you like it?"

"It's the best room I ever saw."

"Well, you're the best Darius I've ever seen."

Darius giggled.

Nicole's heart soared.

Matthew ran into Nicole and Eric's room then, and Darius gave chase. The room was not nearly as interesting to the boys as their own rooms, but Nicole realized a second too late what she'd left lying on the bed that would be more than interesting to Eric. His eyes met hers over Darius and Matthew's heads.

"Later," she mouthed, and he nodded.

* * *

"Later" turned out to be after pizza, ice cream, three stories, two board games, one cartoon, bathtime, a cursory explanation of what had happened at the cabin in the woods, and a voicemail from Roman saying that they had made five arrests and wanted to talk to Darius the next day.

"I don't think it's very likely," Nicole told Eric, turning the box over in her hand. "Maybe it's just my mind playing tricks on me because Darius is here and I'm remembering what it was like to be pregnant with him, you know?"

"Maybe," agreed Eric, and Nicole could see him pushing down his enthusiasm. "But if you are, we should know."

"We have two boys," she said. "That's been very sudden."

"And that's great," said Eric. "But suddenly having three boys would be good, too."

"Boys?" Nicole raised an eyebrow. "We don't even know if I'm pregnant, but if I am it's another boy?"

Eric shrugged. "Parker, Darius, Tate, and Matthew. Brady and I decided we need one more boy for a basketball team."

"Oh, you and Brady decided that."

Eric nodded seriously.

The ridiculousness of the declaration was enough to give Nicole the courage to walk into the bathroom, taking the test with her.

They set the timer on Eric's phone for five minutes and sat together on the bed while they waited.

"I want it to be positive," Nicole admitted.

"I know you do," said Eric. "I do too. I know it's a long shot, but I can still wish for it."

"I— if this had been six months ago, I would have had more mixed feelings. I would have been afraid that if I did get pregnant, I wouldn't carry to term. But now that we have Darius, I know I can do it. I did do it."

"He's a miracle," agreed Eric. "All kids are, but this one, well, maybe a little bit more."

"He doesn't seem to be very upset by what happened," said Nicole.

"I think he's so used to upheaval that he didn't think it was all that strange. Wherever the DiMeras had him stashed was probably nicer than some of the foster homes."

"Probably." It was hard not to dwell on the five years that she and her son would never get back.

"Hey," said Eric. "We have him now, and it'll be okay. He'll know what it is to have a home. And parents."

"How am I even going to tell him I'm his mother?"

"'There was a mixup at the hospital, and I'm your real mother' usually works in the fairy tales."

"This is not a fairy tale."

"You're just saying that because it hasn't been so far."

"If it were a fairy tale, that line would be blue." She looked across the room at the test just as Eric's phone began to beep.

Hand in hand, they walked across the room to look at the test.

Nicole was barely able to register what she'd seen before Eric lifted her off of her feet in an embrace.

A fairy tale it was, then.

 _ **The End  
**_

* * *

 _ **Epilogue A**_

The first Friday in December was cold and clear and spectacularly beautiful. It was made even more beautiful when Carrie presented Eric and Nicole with papers confirming that Darius' birth certificate had been corrected to acknowledge Nicole as his biological and legal mother.

Over breakfast, Nicole had a solemn conversation with Darius. She used the overly simple words Eric had suggested— that there had been a mixup at the hospital and that she was Darius' mother.

Darius nodded sagely. "I thought so," he said.

"Why did you think that?"

"I knew I didn't belong there," said Darius, sounding like every other child who had ever speculated that his imperfect parents couldn't possibly have been his real parents. Brandon and Nicole had certainly daydreamed that Paul hadn't been their father. Brandon, of course, had been right.

"Is Eric my father?" Darius followed up hopefully.

"He'd like to be, if you'd let him," said Nicole.

"Good," said Darius, and Nicole made a note to ask Carrie for adoption papers as a wedding present. "What about Matty?" Darius asked.

"He's still your brother and he we'd like to be his parents, too. It's a little more complicated for him. But he's staying here for a long time."

Darius seemed to accept that.

It had been almost too easy.

She was well aware that it wouldn't always be this easy, but she was looking forward to it all the same.

* * *

Now that Darius knew the truth, there was no reason to hide the news from anyone else. Most of the people Nicole cared about already knew, but there was one very important exception.

On Friday evening, as they went through an informal wedding rehearsal, Nicole pulled Sydney aside. Sydney had officially been deemed the candle lighter rather than a junior bridesmaid, and she glowed as brightly as her candles.

"I'm so happy you're here, Sydney," Nicole told her. "My wedding wouldn't be perfect without you, did you know that?"

"I'm glad I'm here too, Mama Nicole."

Nicole knew perfectly well that Sydney didn't really remember the days when Nicole had been her mother and that she only called Nicole "Mama" because she delighted in enraging Sami. It still made her heart hurt. She loved her former stepson Johnny; she loved her almost-stepson Parker. None of it compared to the hold Sydney was always going to have on her heart.

 _You should have been my daughter,_ she thought but didn't say. "I want you to know that the days when I was your mama were some of the best days of my life, and I will always love you."

"I love you, too," said Sydney, quite naturally, as if it were something she said every day. It probably was. She had a mother and a brother and a sister who adored her the way she deserved to be adored.

"Those little boys who are going to be the ring bearers tomorrow are my sons. Darius is the older one and Matthew is the younger one." She paused. Was it too much to tell Sydney that she was one of the reasons that Nicole was sure that she could be a good mother? Was it too presumptuous to tell Sydney that having children of her own didn't mean she loved Sydney any less? Was it way too soon to explain that even though he would be raised as her cousin, Darius was actually her half-brother? "I hope you get to know them, since I love all of you," she completed lamely.

"Okay," said Sydney. "I'll try not to set them on fire."

"You do that," said Nicole.

It was a start.

She kissed Eric goodbye and left to spend the night with Chloe, consigning the task of bringing the boys home and getting them to the wedding the next morning to Eric.

Over her shoulder, she watched Sydney and Sami laughing with Eric as they said goodbye, and she marveled for a minute at how much Sami and Eric looked like twins when Sami was behaving herself. Sami hadn't even objected when she'd been told that the wedding party would be limited to Brady and Chloe and the children, and Nicole knew that Sami must have always expected that she would stand up with her twin brother. All the letters Eric had written about his childhood confirmed what anyone could see, that they had always been very close. They'd never clashed about much of anything other than Nicole.

It wasn't quite fair.

* * *

Eric awoke alone in his bed on the morning of the wedding to a feeling of utter terror.

Waking up without Nicole beside him was not something he liked or wanted to get used to.

Getting two tiny boys into tiny suits wasn't something he wanted to get used to, either, even though Matty was finally warming up to him and he had the two of them more or less presentable before Brady turned up to escort them to the church.

"You have the rings?" Eric asked, because grooms always asked best men that whether they doubted it or not. Brady removed the rings from his pocket and presented them, not even pretending that he might have lost them.

On the way to the church, Brady talked to Darius and Matthew but ignored Eric. Once Brady had waylaid Brandon and sent him off to take the boys to visit Nicole, though, Eric found himself backed into a meeting room.

"All right," said Brady. "Tell me everything you're afraid of and I'll tell you why everything you're afraid of is not going to happen."

"I'm afraid of someone interrupting to try to kill all of us," said Eric pointedly. Brady of all people had no business acting like fearing a wedding disaster was stupid.

"I have guards on the doors, and another prison break on your wedding day is basically statistically impossible."

"I'm afraid of someone stopping the wedding."

"Very tight guest list. Everyone here wants you to marry Nicole."

"I'm afraid of Sami changing her mind and deciding to make a scene."

Brady opened the door and yelled down the hall. "Hey, Sami? Get in here!"

A moment later, Sami appeared in a green velvet dress. "You look nice," he told her.

"Yeah, Nicole decided not to sabotage me."

"Nicole picked that dress?" Eric demanded.

"Green velvet for a wedding this close to Christmas is basically a classic," said Sami. "Of course it looks better on Chloe than it looks on me, but that's okay." She flicked her eyes at Brady. "See, Brady? I didn't call her Opera Bitch. I haven't called her Opera Bitch once today. I even said she looked pretty."

"Your maturity astounds us all," said Brady.

"As it should," said Sami.

"Why are you dressed the same way as Chloe?" asked Eric. "Chloe is the maid of honor. You are not in the wedding."

"I am now," said Sami casually. "You see, Brandon was going to give Nicole away, but he isn't now, so he's going to be standing up on her side, and you know the balance is all wrong if you don't have someone besides Brady standing up on your side. So he's your best man and I'm your best woman."

"Does Nicole know about this?" asked Eric.

"It was Nicole's idea," said Brady. "She knows that you and Sami have always been close and she didn't want you to have your one and only wedding without your twin sister by your side. And to Sami's credit, she did offer to have Sydney in the wedding before any of this happened, which I think Nicole took as a show of good faith."

"See?" said Sami. "I'm not completely awful all the time."

"I know that," said Eric. He pulled Sami into a tight hug. "I love you. I'm glad you're going to be up there with me."

"Isn't this nice?" asked Brady. "One less thing to worry about."

"You don't have to worry about anything," Sami promised. "If you don't trust Brady and me, Brandon and Chloe are definitely trustworthy. What could possibly go wrong?"

"Sydney could burn the church down when she's trying to light the candles."

Sami looked at Brady and shrugged. "That one's actually possible. It's not like she's Johnny, but still."

"She did fine last night," Brady defended.

"Why did we bother having a rehearsal if you were just going to change the whole wedding party behind my back?"

"It's not like I wasn't in the room," said Sami. "And it's not like I don't know how a wedding is supposed to go. Besides, you know what they say about the groom at the wedding being like the corpse at a funeral. You need him to have the party, but you don't expect him to do much."

"We had a rehearsal so we could improve some things," said Brady. "And we did."

There was a knock on the door, and Sami happily opened it. "I've been told to tell you five more minutes," said Marlena.

"There, five minutes," said Brady. "Almost there. I'm going to check on Nicole's side, but I'll be right back."

"You still have time to give your mother a hug, don't you?" asked Marlena. Eric nodded and obliged. "My sweet boy, I am so glad that we're all together for this day. Thank you for not eloping. I'm sure you were tempted."

"Nicole wouldn't let me," Eric admitted.

"I really do like her," said Marlena.

Since he was in a church, Eric decided that it would be bad form to put his hand on the floor to see if hell had frozen over.

"Is it so surprising to you that your family wants you to be happy?" Marlena asked.

"No," said Eric. "It's surprising that you all agree with me about what would make me happy."

Marlena put one hand on Eric's shoulder and one on Sami's. "I remember the summer that I was pregnant with the two of you. One evening there was this beautiful warm, summer rain. I noticed that a friend of mine was looking very sad, and I took him outside to dance in the rain. He thought I'd lost my mind, and believe me your father thought the same thing, told me that if I wanted to be wet I could take a shower. But I just felt so much joy from having the two of you inside of me and I wanted everyone else to be that happy. That's how I feel today, knowing that Eric is going to have the marriage and the family that he's wanted for a long time and that Sami will be up there next to him, in Salem where she belongs."

"I'm not sure I'm staying, Mom," said Sami.

"Sydney and Johnny and Allie seem very happy."

" _Hey, Brady! Get back here! Any day now!"_ shouted Sami.

Marlena beamed. "I'll go find my place."

* * *

In the bride's room, Nicole's years of modeling served her well. She was able to let Chloe and Taylor fuss over her hair and her dress without once interfering.

"You look stunning," Chloe told Nicole.

"You really do," Taylor and Brandon chorused.

"It's silly," Nicole admitted. "I've done this more times than I'd like to admit to, and I've never felt like this before."

"Because you're finally marrying the right guy?" asked Chloe.

Nicole nodded. She reached for Brandon's and Taylor's hands. "I wish Mom were here."

"I'm sure she's watching over us," said Brandon.

"It's not the same," said Nicole. "I wish she were here to give me away. I always gave her such a hard time for not protecting us from the sperm donor, but she did the best she could, and she was the only parent we had. Three kids and a violent husband, not much money. What was she supposed to do? It's easy to say that she should have left, but how many people are really capable of tossing out everything they've ever known and putting all their trust in strangers like that? We should still have our mother, since we got screwed out of having a father." She rolled her eyes at Brandon. "Well, except you."

"I'm not going to pretend it isn't nice to know that I don't have Paul Mendez's genes, but Abe loves the two of you as much as he loves me. If things had been different, he would have been part of all of our lives."

"I like Valerie," said Taylor. "But if Mom were alive and Abe were single…"

"You know it," agreed Nicole. "It would've happened." She squeezed Taylor's hand. "I'm sorry about not making you a bridesmaid, Tay. We were only going to do two attendants, and then I decided that I should surprise Eric by adding Sami, and that meant turning Brandon into a bridesman to balance things out, and—"

"I get it," said Taylor. "Eric has two sisters who aren't in the wedding party either. I'm just glad I can be here with you."

Tactfully, neither one of them mentioned the fact that the last time Taylor had attended one of Nicole's weddings, she had promptly begun to pursue the groom.

Thankfully, for so many reasons, Eric wasn't EJ.

"The thing is, Nicky," said Brandon, "Eric's not the only one getting a wedding party surprise today."

"I hate surprises," said Nicole.

"You didn't mind doing it to Eric," said Taylor.

"That's different." Nicole stated the obvious.

"You don't have to keep the surprise if you don't want it," said Brandon. He slipped out of the bride's room, only to return a moment later with Abe beside him.

Before Nicole could even greet Abe, he knelt before her and offered her his hands. "Nicole," he said. "I know that you must be missing your mother terribly today. I miss her, too. I wish she could be here for you, but as someone who knew her and loved her, and who knows you and loves you, I wanted to offer you my services as an escort down the aisle."

Nicole had prided herself on her skills as a model who would never ruin her hair or her dress or her makeup too soon. Her eyes filled with tears and threatened to destroy all of Chloe's and Taylor's hard work.

"You can say no," said Abe hastily. "Brandon was supposed to tell you that you could say no."

"I did!" objected Brandon.

Nicole threw her arms around Abe, mindless of her perfectly arranged dress. "Yes!" she told him. "Thank you."

* * *

Brady snapped the ring box open just before he, Sami, and Eric made their way to the front of the church. "Still haven't lost them," he whispered. "Not like you're trusting Sami with something like this."

With so many eyes upon them, Sami pretended not to be miffed. Besides, she could hardly have been expected to tear her attention away from Sydney as Sydney, beautiful and graceful, lit the candles on the altar and took her place beside her mother.

Darius and Matthew were next, gleeful and happy; Brady mimed taking the rings with which they had not really been trusted from them. Then came Brandon and Chloe.

Then, finally, proudly on Abe's arm, was Nicole.

As soon as Eric looked at her, all of his worries evaporated, carried away on the wisps of smoke from Sydney's candles.

He didn't ponder how odd it was to be the one making the vows after officiating at so many weddings. He didn't surreptitiously check to see if the musicians had been replaced by troublemaking imposters. He didn't remember the day that he'd been defrocked on this very altar, nor the day he'd been shot here. He only looked at Nicole and appreciated the moment that he put a ring on her finger and kissed her.

* * *

 **Epilogue B:**

For all that Eric and Nicole had claimed that holding their wedding at St. Luke's was a way of reclaiming a place that had been special to them, Christmas Eve found them skipping Midnight Mass and not caring at all. Darius and Matthew were too overwhelmed with their new lives and the excitement of a visit from Santa Claus to be trusted anywhere but in their own beds.

"We'll take all three of them next year," Eric told Nicole as he rested one hand on her stomach. They lay beneath the Christmas tree and stared up at its lights.

"You think it'll be easier with three than with two?" Nicole asked.

"I don't know," admitted Eric. "This time last year I was in prison trying to keep myself from doing something incredibly self-destructive because I felt like I was so lonely I was about to die from it." Nicole winced in sympathy and covered his hand with her own. "I thought it was year one of five. I thought I'd be doing it four more times. I couldn't let myself dream of getting out early, let alone dream of lying here with you and our family." He rubbed her stomach again. "Three kids in three months, and married before Christmas. I'm so grateful to you, Nicole I really didn't see any of this coming."

"I guess that's only fair," said Nicole. Green and blue and pink and orange flashed across her face.

"How?" asked Eric.

"Because I didn't see it coming, either. I had no idea how much life was going to change that day you came into the Java Cafe." She leaned over and kissed him. "Thank you."

 **The End  
**


End file.
